The New York City consulting firm headed by former governor George Pataki and his chief of staff John Cahill has decided not to pursue a consulting contract with the Town of Riverhead to market the Calverton Enterprise Park site, Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter said this weekend.
“They informed me they decline to work with the town,” Walter said in a phone interview Saturday. “They have indicated they may bring some of their clients to EPCAL,” he said, “but they won’t be representing the town to market the site.” Walter declined comment on what motivated the firm’s about-face. A Pataki-Cahill representative could not immediately be reached for comment.
The supervisor said he now plans to ask the town board to authorize a request for proposals to find a real estate brokerage firm to market the site. He’s already asked deputy town attorney Anne Marie Prudenti to begin drafting it, he said.
Pataki-Cahill was one of three firms invited by the supervisor to meet with the town board at a work session in October to discuss how their services might help the town market and sell land at EPCAL, where the town is working to complete a 50-lot subdivision.
The town had not issued a request for proposals for the professional services agreement. That drew sharp criticism from real estate broker Jack O’Connor, who had previously been the town’s broker on sales at EPCAL, and former town board candidate Anthony Coates.
Riverhead Town’s procurement policy exempts professional services agreements from competitive bidding and RFP requirements.
Coates has insisted that the move to hire Pataki-Cahill was little more than “a smokescreen” by a board he called “clueless.” The supervisor’s former ally, who with Walter’s support ran a 2013 primary campaign for the Republican nomination for councilman against incumbent council members Jodi Giglio and John Dunleavy, argued that the Pataki-Cahill deal was politically motivated.
“What this is about is site control,” Coates said in December, after a town board work session meeting with Pataki-Cahill partner John Cahill and director Joseph Edgar. The board at that meeting had asked Prudenti to begin negotiating and drafting an agreement with the firm. “It’s about John J. LaValle and the Republican machine wanting their hooks in EPCAL and now they’re bringing in the former Republican governor to get it done,” Coates said.
Pataki, who served three terms as N.Y. governor (1995-2006) is currently exploring a run for the White House. He has already traveled to New Hampshire and Iowa, where last week he attended the Iowa Ag Forum. The town board at its Feb. 18 meeting tabled a resolution authorizing the supervisor to sign a contract with Pataki-Cahill. Councilman James Wooten moved to table the resolution “out of respect for my colleagues” who were not ready to vote on the contract, he said, referring to Giglio and Councilman George Gabrielsen.
Gabrielsen expressed concern about having had an opportunity to discuss as a board the terms of the agreement, specifically the 4.5 percent commission payable to the firm on any sales of land at the enterprise park.
Walter said the board had discussed a 4-percent rate.
“We’ll probably land on this,” Gabrielsen said. “ I think we will. But we need to discuss it.”
“It’s a great group. If we could put this off for one meeting,” Wooten said. “This all happened during the week. We haven’t had a public meeting to discuss it.”
Giglio said afterward that the contract, which was not made public, had only been provided to her at 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the meeting.
“That was not enough time to read it thoroughly and it’s an important contract,” Giglio said.
Walter was joined by Councilman John Dunleavy in opposition to Wooten’s motion to table, which was seconded by Gabrielsen and supported by Giglio.
Walter said the contract required Pataki-Cahill to subcontract with the real estate brokerage firm of Cushman-Wakefield — which, like Pataki-Cahill, had also made a pitch to the board last fall for the exclusive right to market the site.
In moving to table, Wooten asked that the resolution be put off for one meeting, but it didn’t make it onto the board’s March 3 meeting agenda — nor was it listed as a discussion item on either agenda of the two town board work sessions held since the Feb. 18 meeting.
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