EPCAL

The Riverhead Town Board will take up a resolution today to cancel the town’s contract to sell more than 1,600 acres of land at the Calverton Enterprise Park for $40 million to Calverton Aviation & Technology.

They had come bearing paper signs to convey their message the IDA board, not knowing what the outcome would be. By the time the IDA meeting was over Monday night, jubilant residents celebrated what many saw as a hard-fought victory.

The Riverhead IDA Monday night denied Calverton Aviation & Technology’s application for financial assistance to develop the Calverton Enterprise Park site.

The Riverhead IDA is scheduled to take up a resolution Monday evening deciding Calverton Aviation & Technology's financial capability to develop the Calverton Enterprise Park— a decision crucial to how Riverhead's $40 million land deal proceeds — or whether it proceeds at all.

Members of the public visiting Veterans Memorial Park and the EPCAL site are advised by the Town of Riverhead to stay on the recreation trail and off the runways at all times and to stay out of the woods, where town-authorized bow-hunting for deer is now underway.

Guest column: As Election Day approaches, Town Board members are telling us there will be no cargo airport and belittling those of us who oppose this plan, saying we are simply 'fear mongering.' The people of Riverhead are not stupid.

Letter to the Editor: A few weeks before Election Day, they get all chesty and make disingenuous stump speeches. Where were they for the past two years?

CAT has backed away from its air cargo proposal for EPCAL and now says its development plan is in flux. The IDA's review of CAT's application for tax breaks in the absence of a firm plan is improper, the chairperson of the State Senate's government watchdog committee said. First District Sen. Anthony Palumbo, a member of that committee, agreed.

Supervisor Yvette Aguiar raised concerns last week about when the town would receive the balance of its $40 million for land at the Calverton Enterprise Park, if the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency moves the town's deal with Calverton Aviation and Technology forward.

Riverhead Industrial Development Agency board members on Wednesday questioned representatives of the Triple Five affiliate in contract to buy more than 1,600 acres at Calverton Enterprise Park from Riverhead Town about the company’s finances, bringing what has primarily been a closed-door vetting process out into the public eye.