Government

Board to vote on upping VHB contract by $163k, approving budget

MICHAEL WHITE PHOTO | Riverhead Town Hall on Howell Avenue.
MICHAEL WHITE PHOTO | Riverhead Town Hall on Howell Avenue.

Riverhead town board members are set to vote on spending up to $162,390 to complete its study at EPCAL, which is being done by Hauppauge-based planning firm Vanasse Hangen Brustlin.

According to the terms of the resolution the board will consider, “VHB was required to undertake negotiations the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (sic) and as a result of the negotiations VHB was required to modify the subdivision plan several times to obtain NYSDEC support for the project, and as a necessary consequence of the re-design of the subdivision VHB was required re-analyze potential environmental impacts (sic) for each proposed plan.”

The town board originally entered into an agreement with VHB in February of 2011 for a $462,000 study, a plan which will subdivide the Calverton parcel which the town has owned since the 1990s. In March of this year, VHB got the town to amend its original contract, noting that if they were not allowed to represent clients before the Riverhead Town Board, they would back out of the plan.

“We’re one year away from finishing it now,” Sueprvisor Sean Walter said at the time. “If VHB quits, we’d be two years away.”

Mr. Walter was not immediately available for comment.

In a Nov. 6 letter to the supervisor, Kevin Walsh, VHB’s managing director of Long Island Operations, pointed to a “substantial re-design of the subdivision and re-analysis of impacts that have changed during the course of negotiations” with the DEC, in creating a viable plan for EPCAL.

Read Walsh’s letter here:

CDA #16 – TA Authorize Addendum #2-VHB Engineering ATT

 

2014 budget vote

Board members are also planning to vote on the 2014 budget.

A public hearing was held earlier this month on the budget, which calls for a 3 percent increase in spending and a 2.17 percent tax rate increase in the so-called townwide budget – which includes the three funds that all residents pay into. There are also a number of special sewer, water and garbage districts that vary by area, and those would bring total town spending up by three percent to $91.9 million, under the budget proposal.

Supervisor Sean Walter is proposing to use $3.5 million of town reserves to keep taxes down, leaving only about $3 million left in the reserve account. He says this is necessary because the town is paying $4 million in debt on the town landfill reclamation, which went over budget during the previous administration.

Downtown cameras coming?

Board members will also vote on putting out a request for proposals for security cameras downtown, which has been a topic of conversation in recent years.

According to the bid package, prices for cameras in several locations would be needed as part of the bid, including by the Peconic River, Main Street, Griffing Avenue, East Avenue, and other areas downtown.

Tonight’s meeting is set to start at 7 p.m.

Click here to read tonight’s agenda.