The temperature in the Town Hall meeting room rose a few degrees late in the Town Board meeting yesterday when Suffolk CSEA president Bill Walsh took the floor to ask Town Board members "in the spirit of community" to forgo their $47,000 "salaries and stipends" in order to help save the 13 town jobs slashed from the 2011 budget, a demand first made in a RiverheadLOCAL.com interview Nov. 22. (See story.)
Walsh's remarks about board members being part-time workers made the council people bristle.
"You can stop right there," Councilman George Gabrielsen interrupted. "This is not a part-time job. Those days are long gone." Gabrielsen said board members are working on town business all day long and into the evening, spending many nights at various meetings.
Councilman John Dunleavy asked Walsh if his wife, Brookhaven Town Councilwoman Kathleen Walsh, is giving up her salary to save town jobs in Brookhaven.
"You're inaccurate," Walsh answered. "There were no layoffs in Brookhaven," he said. The town supervisor had proposed layoffs, according to Walsh, but the union "came up with a plan by looking at the budget very closely," he said, and finding 14 positions that were funded but not filled.
After a back-and-forth with Dunleavy, Walsh admitted that six employees in the Brookhaven Town highway department still faced layoffs, but the town was working with the union to avoid them — something Walsh and the Riverhead CSEA claim town government here has refused to do.
"You have my assurances, wife or no wife, friend or no friend, I will advocate the same thing to them that I advocate to you, Walsh said.
The CSEA in Brookhaven agreed to employees paying 10 percent of their own medical insurance costs, Councilwoman Jodi Giglio said.
"We got an eight-year contract extension," Walsh answered loudly, speaking over her.
"You speak to me with respect the way I speak to you with respect," an angry Giglio shot back.
"We threw a proposal out there that the union flatly rejected," Supervisor Sean Walter said.
"We have part-time employees getting $8,000-a-year salaries being paid full benefits worth $18,000 a year," Walter said. "It doesn't make sense." The part-timers, he said, would not be restored. The supervisor said he has been working to find a way to save the six full-time jobs.
"We've already got two taken care of," Walter said of the full-time jobs. "If the union agrees to give up its 1.2 percent contract step increase for 2011, "we can save two more jobs." As to the remaining two employees, Walter said, "I've been doing everything I possibly can to help them find employment elsewhere."
Walsh declined to discuss details of negotiations in the public forum and told the supervisor he should be mindful of labor law restrictions on public discussions too.
Walter calls for full impact statement for Wading River commercial plans
Wading River residents turned out in force at the meeting to protest several Wading River commercial development proposals in the Wading River area and ask for stepped-up environmental review of their potential impacts.
They got a surprise when Supervisor Sean Walter told them he had already asked for "coordinated review" and "a full impact statement" before the plans would be allowed to proceed.
Mike Harrigan, Wading River Civic Association president read a letter signed by the civic as well as the North Fork Environmental Council, the Group for the East End and the Riverhead Neighborhood Preservation Coalition seeking a coordinated review of the pending proposals to study their cumulative impacts.
There are currently two shopping centers proposed for Route 25A and Great Rock Golf Course has submitted plans to expand its clubhouse.
"I'm going to give you some bad news and some worse news," Walter responded. He said yet another shopping center is in the works for a site just east of the funeral home on Route 25A.
Walter said he thought the master plan adopted in 2003 sold the Wading River hamlet short.
"I don't think the master plan is all it's cracked up to be," Walter said. It has mistakes in a lot of places," he said. "But we can't legally pull the rug out from under these developers," he added. "Or we get sued, and we'll lose," he said.
"Hey listen, I live there," said Walter, who lives in the hamlet and has a law office there as well.
"I dont' want to see urban blight. I don't want to see development greater than the community can absorb," he said, faulting the adopted master plan for allowing exactly that.
'If I wasn't up here," Walter said, "I'd be at the podium saying the same things."
Support for preserving North Fork Preserve
Northville Beach residents attended the board meeting to voice support of a measure that would have the town kick in up to $500,000 to preserve 311 acres of land north of Sound Avenue in Northville.
They were joined in their support by The Nature Conservancy, Riverhead's open space committee members and the North Fork Preserve property owners themselves at a Town Board public hearing on the plan to partner with Suffolk County in purchasing the land for a still-undisclosed sum. If purchased, most of the site would remain as open space, with a portion of it being improved for recreation. (See Dec. 7 story.)
"North Fork Preserve is one of the top priorities on Long Island for open space preservation," Randy Parsons of The Nature Conservancy told board members. "It is a classic example of what the Community Preservation Fund was intended to protect," he said.
Parsons said the town collected $1.2 million in CPF money this year — funded by the 2 percent transfer tax paid by purchasers of East End properties — and urged the board to commit to "spending one-third of that" on this open space acquisition.
Written comments on the plan may be submitted to the town by Dec. 17. To submit your comments to the Town Clerk by e-mail, click here.
Town Board won't go on the road in '11
There will be two more meetings of the Riverhead Town Board in 2010. The next regular meeting will be held Dec. 21 at 7 p.m. at Town Hall. Following that will be the customary year-end "wrap-up" meeting Dec. 28 at 2 p.m., also at Town Hall.
The board yesterday also established its 2011 meeting schedule, which, as promised by the supervisor, eliminates the Town Board's quarterly road show.
The expense of holding meetings in the various hamlets throughout the year, a practice established decades ago, just cannot be justified in these economic times, Walter had previously stated.
The board will hold regular meetings twice a month in Town Hall, with the first meeting of each month being called for 2 p.m. and the second monthly meeting called for 7 p.m. Regular meetings are held on the first and third Tuesday of each month, though six of the 25 meetings scheduled for next year will take place on Wednesdays, due to holidays falling during the regular meeting week.