Triple Five

The company seeking to buy 1,643 acres at the Calverton Enterprise Park has until Friday, Aug. 3 to let the Town of Riverhead know if it will submit to a financial review at its own expense.

The town had set a deadline of 4 p.m. Wednesday for a response to its demand for financial statements from Triple Five. The town board is now considering a request to extend the deadline by a week.

Deputy Supervisor Tim Hubbard said today he has changed his mind about financial disclosure by Triple Five: “It has weighed so heavily on my mind. I have gone back and forth and in my heart I know I can’t make a decision without it," he said today.

This is the most important decision any town board will be asked to make. Why would they want to make it blindfolded? Column by Denise Civiletti

Former Riverhead Community Development Agency director Chris Kempner acted as a broker for Triple Five earlier this year in the bankruptcy sale of Dowling College's Brookhaven campus, according to a report to the court filed by the college's attorneys in the bankruptcy proceeding.

Former Riverhead Community Development director Chris Kempner was charged with DWI following a crash on W. Main Street Tuesday evening. Police said she rear-ended another vehicle. Kempner's attorney says it was a "total set-up" — the other vehicle backed into her. Kempner's been followed for a couple of weeks and is the subject of an investigation involving EPCAL, the lawyer said.

A fundamental split dividing the Riverhead Town Board along party lines broke wide open in full public view this morning: How much financial disclosure should be required of the company that wants to buy and develop the Calverton Enterprise Park?

A complaint charging Councilwoman Jodi Giglio with ethics violations has been filed with the N.Y. State Attorney General’s Public Integrity Bureau, which investigates allegations of government corruption, fraud and abuse of authority. The councilwoman called the complaint "a political hit."

Triple Five says it is looking forward to re-establishing the aviation programming at the former Dowling School of Aviation site, a 105-acre parcel adjacent to Brookhaven's Calabro Airport.

The councilwoman said in an interview Tuesday afternoon she has not decided whether she will abide by any ethics board’s recommendation that she recuse herself from voting on the "qualified and eligible sponsor" application by a company she met privately with during a pending hearing.