Kent Animal Shelter’s effort to replace its existing facility on the Peconic River with an upgraded and expanded one had a second public hearing before the state pine barrens commission yesterday afternoon in Brookhaven Town Hall.
So many people turned in support of the Calverton shelter that the commission had to move the hearing from its regular small meeting room to the large town board meeting room. One by one, dozens of supporters asked commissioners to approve the shelter’s application for exemption from the strict prohibition against new development within the pine barrens core preservation area, citing the shelter’s decades of work rescuing, spaying and neutering and adopting out homeless dogs and cats.
Especially cats. The shelter’s approval hinges on a finding by the commission that Kent is entitled to an exemption from the strict development ban because its feral cat spay/neuter and adoption programs “serve an essential health or safety need of the municipalities … such that public health and safety require the requested waiver.”
Kent’s application has met with fierce resistance from the L.I. Pine Barrens Association, whose executive director yesterday again insisted that the commission has no choice but to reject it under the statute.
Drawing jeers and occasional heckling from shelter supporters in the audience, Pine Barrens Society executive director Richard Amper argued against granting the exemption. The feral cat population does not pose a public health threat, Amper said, and the percentage of the feral cat population spayed or neutered by Kent “represents only a tiny fraction of the feral cats at large on Long Island.”
He called the shelter, with its aging septic systems along the Peconic River, “a polluter” and, though the proposed new septic system would be an improvement over what’s existing at the site, he acknowledged, it’s still an expansion that would result in twice as much wastewater being discharged into the groundwater in the core preservation area.
“Let’s face it, the Kent Animal Shelter is shamelessly using cute puppies to promote its project, assuming that politicians will pander to the popular and not meet their obligation to protect the public’s water and obey the law. It’s outrageous,” Amper said.
Maryann Johnston, president of the Affiliated Brookhaven Civic Organization, also opposed the application yesterday, citing groundwater impacts from its expanded septic system.
Amper saved his harshest words for Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter, whom he accused of “shilling for the applicant” by suggesting, at the Kent’s first hearing in March, that it should seek an exemption under the “essential health or safety need” section of the law, rather than an “extreme hardship” exemption, as it was then pursuing. At that hearing, Walter pointed out to the applicant that it was the only facility that handles feral cats.
Questioning Kent’s executive director Pamela Green at the March 18 meeting, Walter said, according to a transcript of the proceeding: “Is it safe to say, and I am not going to put these words in your mouth, but is it essential to the health safety, you have to answer this question, to the health, safety needs of Riverhead that cats be spayed and neutered and taken care of?”
A few moments later, the Riverhead supervisor says “now I will testify and I should not do this but as the town supervisor , without Kent Animal helter I would have zero place to send cats,” he said. After briefly discussing the Riverhead dog pound before the North Fork Animal Welfare League took over its operation, he continued: “So I can tell you that your services are essential to the Town of Riverhead.” He then advised Kent’s lawyer to “brief this point because it is an important point.”
The proceedings were subsequently adjourned to allow Kent to submit new legal briefs and to allow time for public review of them.
Amper yesterday submitted the Pine Barrens Society’s reply papers — as well as a letter to Walter demanding that he recuse himself from voting on the Kent application in light of his conduct at the March 18, 2015 meeting, “showing obvious bias in support of an application” and “lack of impartiality by advising counsel and coaching witnesses.”
“You provided direct advice to counsel for Kent, made explicit recommendations on how they might obtain a hardship waiver, prompted Kent’s witnesses and advised Kent’s legal team on a legal strategy aimed at advancing an application on which you expected to vote,” Amper wrote.
He also requested counsel to the commission to advise Walter he is required to recuse himself, “understanding that you have already compromised the application review process.”
Walter said after yesterday’s meeting he has no intention of recusing himself from the vote.
“I did nothing wrong. I’m a commissioner. I’m allowed to ask questions of an applicant,” he said.
The hearing record was kept open for written comment until Sept. 16, with a decision by the commission expected at its Oct. 21 meeting.
Following the resignation of the governor’s representative on the commission — former DEC regional director Peter Scully left his post with the state agency in May to become Suffolk County’s “water quality czar” — the commission has only four voting members. If there is no majority supporting either approval or denial, the commission and applicant agreed a vote would be taken after the governor appoints his new representative.
By law, the board consists of a representative of the governor, the county executive or his designee, and the supervisors of the towns of Brookhaven, Riverhead and Southold, the three towns where the L.I. Pine Barrens region lies.
The pine barrens, encompassing more than 100,000 acres in Suffolk, overlies the largest source of pure groundwater in the state and is home to one of the greatest concentrations and diversities of endangered, threatened and special concern species of plants and animals anywhere in New York.
Legislation to protect the region was first passed by the state in 1990. The law essentially bans new development within the designated “core preservation area” and places stringent limits on new development within the designated “compatible growth area” of the region. No new development can be undertaken without a permit from the commission and all new development in the core area, including expansion of existing uses, requires the applicant to meet strict requirements for showing extreme hardship or public need.
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