TIM GANNON FILE PHOTO | Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter is heading to Albany Feb. 29.

Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter said he plans to spend Leap Day, Feb. 29, in Albany lobbying state officials to create a clearinghouse or authority to better coordinate the permitting process at EPCAL and to streamline the approvals needed to develop clean businesses at the former Grumman property.

The supervisor, who is calling it Albany Advocacy Day, got the idea last year when Town Board members took a trip to Devins, Mass., which has established a similar authority and has successfully turned a former military base into a thriving industrial park.

“Only by getting all levels of government in sync and working cooperatively can we begin to create the high-tech-based, clean, green, high-paying jobs of the future here in Riverhead,” Mr. Walter said.

The proposed authority would unite federal, state, county and local governments, as well as all appropriate agencies, under the banner of one entity that would cut red-tape and allow potential developers at EPCAL to receive faster approvals or denials in their attempts to create businesses, according to the supervisor.

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