Jefferson Murphree

Riverhead's former top planning official will be on leave with full pay until his resignation March 6, 2025, according to an agreement approved by the Town Board this week.

The town and its former top planning official, Jefferson Murphree, "have resolved their dispute," Supervisor Tim Hubbard announced Tuesday. Disciplinary charges have been withdrawn, conditioned on Murphree's retirement within one year.

The Town Board is poised to order head planner Jefferson Murphree back to work this week. But he'll be coming back to a new position in a new department — and he will no longer be a department head. Instead he'll be reporting to Dawn Thomas, who will head up the new Department of Planning and Economic Development.

The judge called the subpoena "nothing more than a fishing expedition" and vacated a July 5 restraining order that had prevented Jefferson Murphree's disciplinary hearing from continuing.

Riverhead Building and Planning Administrator Jefferson Murphree, who was suspended in March on disciplinary charges accusing him of incompetence, neglect of duty and insubordination, says the “charges are politically motivated by a pretext by a sometimes irrational supervisor and Town Board wherein he is being made a political scapegoat.”

Riverhead Town has charged its Building and Planning Administrator Jefferson Murphree with insubordination and incompetence and is asking for termination of his employment.

A resolution authorizing the suspension was passed unanimously Wednesday night by the Town Board in a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Yvette Aguiar absent. The resolution authorized up to 30 days of the suspension without pay. It did not specify the substance of the charges.

Riverhead planners have proposed an amendment to the town’s transfer of development rights code that would create a major new receiving area for development rights transferred from agricultural land in the town.

Supervisor Yvette Aguiar and former Councilwoman Barbara Blass both had harsh words for the planning department's handling of the application for a proposed 100-megawatt battery energy storage system for a site on Mill Road.

Riverhead planning officials could have said “We hear ya” and abandoned the controversial idea of a third lane along the length of Sound Avenue in favor of studying other alternatives. Instead the town's top planner simply denied the recommendation was made. That's gaslighting the public — and it's not going to fly.