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Smaller eateries could seat more, serve liquor

Smaller restaurants in Huntington may be able to expand their seating and serve a glass of wine with food. File photo

Huntington Town is looking for ways to allow smaller restaurants, like dine-in pizzerias and coffee shops, to offer more seating and obtain a liquor license in order to make them more competitive, officials said this week.

Councilwoman Tracey Edwards (D) sponsored legislation that attempts to help small businesses that serve food on-premises by placing them under a new classification. Currently, the town only classifies such establishments as either food shops or restaurants, but the former cannot have more than 15 seats and cannot serve alcohol, while the latter must have a floor plan of at least 2,500-square-feet. If passed, the resolution would create a new classification for bistros and allow one seat per 65-square-feet of total floor area, for a maximum of 38 seats in a 2,500-square-foot location.

If a business were to be approved as a bistro spot, it would have to meet specific parking requirements, could not have a drive-through, and could not dedicate more than 5 percent of its total gross floor area to prepackaged retail products, Edwards’ legislation said.

“Creating the bistro classification will help preserve the type of unique, local businesses that are present in our small strip malls as well as in our local villages and hamlets,” Edwards said in a statement. “This measure is important so that small businesses continue to have economic growth within the town of Huntington.”

Town Supervisor Frank Petrone (D) said that it’s important for town code to keep up with the times and the culture of what consumers now want in a restaurant.

“For example, today, many people like to have a glass of wine or a beer with a slice of pizza,” Petrone said in a statement. “This change will help small eateries that traditionally are owned by local businesspeople satisfy that demand and not lose customers to restaurants that already have capability.”

Residents and business owners of Huntington echoed this sentiment at a public hearing during a Huntington Town Board meeting Tuesday night.

Vito Defeo, owner of Viajo’s Pizza and Pasta on East Jericho Turnpike in Huntington, said that it’s an integral part of a restaurant to be able to offer a glass of wine or a beer with a meal.

“So it impacts our small businesses very greatly,” he said at the meeting. “Anything that can be done to move this forward, not just for myself, but for all the other small businesses in the town that are really restaurants but can’t be classified as such, I think is great. There are a lot of small operations that make amazing food that people would considered to be a restaurant, but unfortunately are not.”

Lisa Dvoskin, an attorney and lifelong resident of Huntington stressed the importance of maintaining smaller businesses in the area.

“I think we can all agree that the local businesses in Huntington are the lifeblood of this town,” Dvoskin said. “It is my hope we can have this new classification, in ‘bistro,’ to allow small businesses and restaurants to fairly compete and be successful.”

In addition to adding a bistro classification, Edwards said she also wants to simplify the bar classifications. Currently, a tavern or bar is under a sub classification of a restaurant, and with the new proposal, the distinction between a restaurant and a bar would be that a bar does not need to have kitchen facilities for food services at all times and is not required to have seating available for 90 percent of the lawful amount of patrons.

Edwards said after the meeting that based on the positive response from public comment, she expects the bistro law to be voted on at the next board meeting in January.

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File photo

The Smithtown Town Board is changing the way it allows the public to speak during its regular meetings.

The board voted 4-0 at its Nov. 19 meeting to amend Chapter 76 of the town code, which regulates public participation at town meetings, adding a three-minute limit to remarks and restricting the sharing of that time with other speakers. In an interview, Smithtown Supervisor Pat Vecchio (R) said the amendments were borne out of the nature of recent Town Board meetings in which some speakers spoke aggressively or with hyperbole.

“Members of the public and Board members shall be allowed to state their positions in an atmosphere free of slander, threats of violence, or disorderly conduct which disturbs the peace and order of the board meeting,” the amendment said.

Councilman Ed Wehrheim (R) was not present at the meeting.

According to the amendment, speakers must submit their names to the town clerk before a meeting if they wish to speak, while also specifying what they will be commenting on. The speakers will be allotted three minutes, which starts at the beginning of their remarks and includes any time that passes during questioning or colloquy, the amendment said. That time cannot be shared with other speakers.

Over the last several years, residents often approached the board with specific concerns, oftentimes directed at council members who serve as liaisons to specific departments. But now, those kinds of concerns cannot be directed solely at a specific member of the board, as the amendment said that remarks could only be addressed to the board as a body, and speakers cannot mention any specific member.

The new additions to the town code also included a chance for board members to warn speakers that they may be cut off at any time if they violate the new rules.

“Any person making offensive, insulting, threatening, insolent, slanderous or obscene remarks or who becomes boisterous or who makes threats against any person or against public order and security during a Board meeting or engages in any disorderly conduct which disturbs or disrupts the orderly conduct of any meeting shall be called to order by the presiding officer,” the amendment said. “If, after receiving a warning from the presiding officer, a person persists in violating the rules of decorum, the presiding officer may order that person to leave the meeting.”

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A new sidewalk runs along Highlands Boulevard in upper Port Jefferson. Photo by Elana Glowatz

They blazed the path and now they’re going to light the way.

With a new sidewalk already paved along Highlands Boulevard, keeping pedestrians out of the road, Port Jefferson officials are now working on installing streetlights on the route.

A new sidewalk runs along Highlands Boulevard in upper Port Jefferson. Photo by Elana Glowatz
A new sidewalk runs along Highlands Boulevard in upper Port Jefferson. Photo by Elana Glowatz

The village board of trustees on Monday approved spending $28,000 for Flushing-based Welsbach Electric Corp. to put in eight decorative streetlight poles and light fixtures along the winding sidewalk, between the entrance to the Highlands condominiums and Oakland Avenue in uptown Port Jefferson.

That dollar figure is higher than an original $17,000 cost approved in August. Mayor Margot Garant explained at Monday’s board meeting that the village needs more lighting than initially expected.

“We had originally contemplated putting three Dickens lanterns in,” she told the trustees, referring to the antique-style streetlights the village uses. But the “village lanterns are not known for their best illumination. So if we were to light [it] properly, it would need one Dickens lantern every 50 feet.”

However, the bumped-up expense, which will come out of the village’s surplus if the public works department budget cannot cover it, does not represent the entire lighting cost for the stretch of sidewalk. That price tag would have been “more than we have in the budget,” Trustee Larry LaPointe said.

Instead the village will put in the eight streetlights, 150 feet apart, according to Garant. “Just to give it some light at this point in time, and then we can fill in as we continue to go.”

The streetlights will use LED bulbs.

The new roughly 0.2-mile sidewalk on Highlands Boulevard has been in the works for a while, with the idea first coming up a few years ago, when residents coordinated an effort to petition the government to preserve the village-owned grassy area along the road. It was discussed as a safety issue because pedestrians had to walk in the street to get from the condos to the uptown business district.

Board members approved a parkland designation for the 6-acre grassy parcel earlier this year, a move that limits the land’s future use or development. Village officials have discussed the possibility of adding benches or walking paths there, but have expressed a desire to keep the park’s use passive.

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If approved, BQ Energy would have to manage leftover debris at the solar farm site. Photo by Jared Cantor

A renewable energy company has its sights set on a former landfill in Kings Park to build a solar farm, but residents living nearby and conducting business there are not seeing the light.

The Smithtown Town Board considered a special exception request at its last meeting on Nov. 19 that would make way for roughly 18,000 solar panels on about 27 acres along Old Northport Road, according to Kings Park Solar LLC — a subsidiary group of the Poughkeepsie-based BQ Energy. The proposal was met with disdain, however, when residents voiced opposition on the grounds of potential health hazards and negative business consequences for a separate sport complex approved nearby.

A spokeswoman for Kings Park Solar said it would sell the electricity the panels produce to the utility company PSEG, similarly done at other solar and wind farms built throughout the state. If completed, the spokeswoman said the plan could offset more than 1,700 metric tons of carbon monoxide from the region.

Paul Curran, managing director of BQ Energy, said the project was designed like several other solar farms in Suffolk County and would pose no negative health effects because it would be a stationary system build on top of what used to be a landfill.

He said his group would work in compliance with the state Department of Environmental Conservation by consolidating two piles of waste left behind on the property and capping them before construction. Those piles would also be monitored by BQ Energy, he said.

“We look forward to working with our neighbors in the community,” Curran said at the meeting before several residents approached the dais to oppose the plan. “It is a very compatible use and we can fit in very well in the town of Smithtown and we look forward to that.”

But residents in the area were not convinced the proposal would not be a detriment to their health. Neil Rosenberg, president of the homeowners association for condominiums just north of the area in question, said the proposal was not compatible with the best interests of his neighbors. He requested that the board require BQ Energy to work with a neutral third party in drafting an environmental impact study on the solar farm plan.

“What I’ve learned tonight is that the people who are proposing it have said there is no radiation, no noise, nothing coming off this,” he said. “But there’s literature that says contrary. There’s too many unknowns in our opinion.”

And aside from health risks, residents argued that the solar farm would negatively affect a multimillion-dollar sports complex that was approved for construction over the summer on an adjacent lot in Kings Park. Kenny Henderson, a member of Prospect Sports Partners LLC, said that while he was not against solar power or clean energy, he was certain that a solar farm in that location would deter tenants from doing business with his group.

He said ignoring his concerns would be a detriment to the town, as Prospect Sports is poised to produce more than 400 jobs and generate roughly $38.5 million in annual spending in Smithtown.

“We are really struggling now to keep our head above water,” Henderson said. “We started this dream about six years ago, working side by side with the town to make this a reality. But we are 100 percent uncertain if we can build this now, because nobody wants to come do business behind the solar panels.”

The Smithtown Town Board said it would review the special exception request with those concerns in mind before determining environmental effects.

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Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone speaks during SepticSmart Week earlier this year. File photo by Victoria Espinoza

Suffolk County is getting more serious about a smelly situation.

Sixteen months ago, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) bumped water quality issues to the top of his to-do list. Now, the Suffolk County Health Department is reviewing existing sewage treatment plant sites, its enforcement and possible means to strengthen current regulatory programs.

Suffolk County Health Commissioner Dr. James Tomarken said the program could be more effective despite the efforts of wastewater management staff members.

“As a part of a comprehensive approach to improve water quality, it makes sense to review our existing regulatory programs in consultation with governmental agencies and other stakeholders to identify areas where those programs can be improved,” Tomarken said in a press release.

According to Peter Scully, deputy county executive, there aren’t any specific steps to improve the programs yet.

Earlier last month the health department met with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Suffolk County Water Authority, on Nov. 5 and Nov. 16, respectively. Scully said the department addressed regulation efforts and compliance issues with the DEC while they tackled water quality concerns and siting requirements for the sewage treatment plants.

According to the county executive’s website, there’s an excess of 200,000 on-site residential wastewater disposal systems in environmentally compromised areas in the county as of last year. Reviewing the existing programs is an extension of Bellone’s Reclaim Our Waters Initiative. He announced the initiative in March of 2014 to address the county’s poor water quality.

Nitrogen pollution is rampant in the water, which not only affects the water quality but also the organisms living in these waters. The Town of Brookhaven took on similar efforts to address Brookhaven’s declining water quality. In October, the town issued its own study about Long Island’s water, starting with the Setauket Harbor. While that study will take up to a year, conducting the review on the county’s regulatory programs may take several months, according to Scully.

The sewage plant application process will also be evaluated. The health department receives around three applications annually. The review will examine whether the department has adequate penalties for those who don’t comply with sewage plant siting regulations. The regulation process of new facilities or those under order is also up for examination. Scully said this is to help make the facilities better for the environment.

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State Assemblyman Steve Englebright speaks about history at the Three Village Community Trust’s 11th annual celebration. Photo by Maria Hoffman

There used to be more to North Country Road than meets the eye.

State Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) discussed the history and importance of Long Island’s Main streets like North Country Road during the Three Village Community Trust’s 11th annual celebration Nov. 18. Around 80 residents attended the event, which helps raise awareness of various conservation or preservation topics.

Cynthia Barnes, president of the group, said the event also helps residents understand the community better. This year, highway and street preservation was the topic of the evening.

According to guest speaker Englebright, in the early 1600s the king of England ordered the construction of North Country Road otherwise known as Route 25A or Main Street. Christian Avenue was once part of Main Street before North Country Road was developed further. Englebright said North Country Road is the oldest road in the community and it is one of many structures that help define the area.

Speaking about the streets in the neighborhood, Englebright said, “They are also fragile and can be lost and in doing so we can lose part of who we are.”

While change is inevitable as time progresses, the goal is to remember and preserve the history of the locale. Englebright added that many roads residents use are some of the oldest roads in the area. He didn’t specify which roads in particular but said that those living in the community don’t always realize the small changes made to the area over time.

With development pressures and gentrification it’s easy for a community to lose its history. With the trust’s annual celebration, Englebright hoped to bring awareness to the history of local roadways, and help continue preservation efforts.

“We have a tradition in this community of preserving our heritage and trying to maintain that quality of our overall community through preservation and adaptive rescue of repurposed historic buildings,” Englebright said. “[Preservation efforts have] happened here more than almost anywhere else I could think of.”

For his past 32 years as an elected official, Englebright fought and continues to fight to preserve historic neighborhoodsincluding the roadways. In light of his preservation efforts over the years the trust not only invited Englebright to make a presentation at the event, but also honored him for his service and his support of the trust and its work.

The assemblyman has helped preserve many historic sites including the Davis Town Meeting House in Coram. The exterior of the house was renovated but the interior was left in shambles. Unused buildings are typically targeted. In order to preserve the 1750s-built house, Englebright supported a grant to help the Davis Town Meeting House Society cater to the building’s interior. The grant is one of many the assemblyman has advocated during his time in public office.

“We’re very lucky to have an assemblyman or an elected official with not just a vision for this community, but he’s actually able to implement [these visions] in various ways and inspire other people to help him,” Barnes said in a phone interview.

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Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine listens to residents’ concerns before adopting the 2016 operating budget. Photo by Giselle Barkley

Town of Brookhaven officials and residents have one less thing to worry about next year, now that the 2016 budget has been finalized.

On Nov. 19, the town board approved Supervisor Ed Romaine’s nearly $281 million proposed operating budget, which complies with the New York State cap on tax levy increases — in fact holding it, and thus residents’ property taxes, steady next year.

According to a previous interview with Finance Commissioner Tamara Wright, who helped Romaine (R) craft the budget, the town accomplished this by properly managing its capital projects and by satisfying debts.

Earlier this year, the town finished paying off an $8.4 million debt connected to the New York State employees’ retirement system, allowing the town to save about $1 million annually. But its efforts to reduce debt will not end there — going forward, Romaine said, the town will continue addressing that issue and prioritizing expenditures.

“You should not spend money you do not have,” he said. “We’re very much aware of that, and we’re monitoring all of our expenses very carefully.”

Some funds that would have gone toward the completed debt payments will instead be used to fund other parts of the budget in 2016.

The budget also allocates $5.2 million for the highway department’s snow removal budget, a number that has been incrementally increasing since Long Island communities had to dig out of dense snow in the February 2013 blizzard commonly dubbed Winter Storm Nemo, which shut down some roads for days. Brookhaven’s snow removal funding has doubled in the last few years.

If there is leftover money in that account after the winter, the goal is to deposit it into a reserve account that would be used in an emergency winter weather situation.

While roadway upkeep is important, Romaine said designating money to fund all maintenance issues is difficult, because spending is limited.

“It’s hard to do that when you have a tax cap,” Romaine said. “I believe the budget is as good as it’s going to get, considering the constraints we live under.”

In addition to raising the snow removal budget, the town is putting money toward traffic safety, park improvements, open space preservation and land acquisition. The spending plan also increases funding for public safety staff, code enforcement and internal auditors, among others.

Romaine touted the budget’s relying less on fund balance to get by, which adds to financial stability. Without including its debt reserves, Brookhaven’s 2016 budget will only use $2.35 million in reserves, a substantial decrease from the 2015 spending plan, which used about $8 million.

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Huntington Town Councilwoman Susan Berland, Huntington Town Supervisor Frank Petrone, John Ross, Senator Carl Marcellino, Asharoken Mayor Greg Letica, Congressman Steve Israel and Asharoken Deputy Mayor Pamela Pierce cut the ribbon at the new Asharoken Village Hall. Photo by Steve Silverman

The new Asharoken Village Hall officially opened its doors with a dedication ceremony on Nov. 24, ending a 10-year journey of replacing a battered building at the center of the village.

“So many people came to join in on the festivities,” Asharoken Trustee and Police Commissioner Mel Ettinger said, referring to the more than 100 residents who gathered with Mayor Greg Letica, the board of trustees, Congressman Steve Israel (D-Huntington) and New York State Senator Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset). “It made it a fantastic event and a phenomenal success in every way possible.”

The new village hall opened for business last month and is a large expansion from the previous building — the ground floor alone is about 3,000 square feet. There is a larger, improved space for the police station, and the whole thing was built to be more environmentally friendly and energy efficient, with LED lighting and spray-foam insulation.

According to a statement, Letica said at the dedication that the process to get to the finish line has been long, and that Ettinger was a key player from the start.

“The project to build a new village hall was actually started almost 10 years ago … initially as an expansion to our old village hall,” Letica said. But funding either an expansion or a construction of a new building was always a major concern.

Ettinger said he started organizing the renovation project when he first became police commissioner, and was told he could go ahead with it as long as it didn’t increase taxes. That was when Ettinger decided to raise the money through donations.

Asharoken Mayor Greg Letica and Trustee and Police Commissioner Mel Ettinger at the front entrance of the new village hall. Photo by Victoria Espinoza
Asharoken Mayor Greg Letica and Trustee and Police Commissioner Mel Ettinger at the front entrance of the new village hall. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

“Within the first 10 days of announcing that, I received a check for $10,000 from a resident,” Ettinger said. “Before you knew it, people were sending in checks and pledges left and right. And within the next year and half, we already had $175,000.”

But when Hurricane Sandy hit three years ago, irreparably damaging the structure, the village ditched all plans of renovating it. Letica said the storm forced everyone in village hall to abandon the building and start an “urgent project” to erect a new one.

Joan Ettinger, Mel’s wife, formed the Asharoken Fundraising Committee, which according to Letica, ended up raising $360,000 from more than 200 residents and “has enabled the village to fund the cost of this beautiful building.”

Letica said funding was also made possible with help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which reimburses municipalities for repair work following natural disasters.

“Congressman Israel was extremely helpful with … processing our claim with FEMA and I am certain that if not for his personal support and efforts we would have not be able to receive the grant of $538,855,” Letica said.

He also said Marcellino helped the village obtain an additional $50,000 grant.

The total project cost about $950,000.

The new village trustee meeting room on the building’s first floor will soon have a donor board, where the names of people who have donated will be showcased.

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Port Jefferson is fighting to keep property tax revenue flowing from the power plant and to prevent restrictions from being lifted on peaker unit output. File photo by Lee Lutz

The Port Jefferson school district has climbed aboard a lawsuit against the Long Island Power Authority that challenges the utility’s efforts to reduce its property taxes at North Shore power plants.

LIPA has been working for the last several years to significantly reduce taxes at the aging Port Jefferson and Northport plants, saying the facilities are grossly over-assessed and force the utility to pay more in property taxes than it should. But the school board voted on Nov. 24 to join a lawsuit filed by the Town of Huntington and the Northport-East Northport school district that disputes LIPA’s legal right to file its tax challenges, claiming they are a breach of contract.

That argument stems from a 1997 letter from former LIPA Chairman Richard Kessel, in which Kessel said the utility would not file property tax challenges in the future “on any of their respective properties at any time in the future unless a municipality abusively increases its assessment rate.”

The “respective properties” referenced include the Port Jefferson and Northport power plants, which are owned and operated by energy company National Grid. That company sells the energy it produces to the Long Island utility.

In Port Jefferson, the power plant’s property taxes provide much support to the school district, accounting for almost half of its budget, making the potential loss of that revenue a serious issue for the district.

The Port Jefferson Village government is in a similar position, funding about one-third of its budget with power plant taxes. Smaller stakeholders include the Port Jefferson fire and library districts and the Town of Brookhaven.

In an announcement posted on its website last week, the Port Jefferson school district said, “Our decision to join this lawsuit is a necessary step to protect the resources of our school district and the financial stability of our taxpayers.”

Before the Port Jefferson school district joined the lawsuit, LIPA had filed a motion to dismiss it, but New York State’s highest court denied that motion earlier this year and allowed the case to move forward.

At that time, a LIPA spokesperson said the utility does not comment on ongoing litigation.

After the utility’s motion to dismiss was denied — representing a small victory for those fighting LIPA’s tax challenges — Port Jefferson Village filed a separate lawsuit in September that alleges the same breach of contract as the schools’ lawsuit. Village Attorney Brian Egan requested that court action on LIPA’s tax challenges, which are still pending in the court system, be delayed until the new lawsuits are resolved.

If the plaintiffs win their arguments, the pending tax challenges would be thrown out.

According to Egan, however, the lawsuits are now facing a new motion to dismiss, this time from National Grid.

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Marlene Wolke ready to leave her post serving town after decades of working in Supervisor Vecchio’s office

Marlene Wolke retired this week after working alongside Smithtown Supervisor Pat Vecchio for nearly three decades. Photo by Phil Corso

Anyone looking to get to Smithtown Supervisor Pat Vecchio (R) had to get through Smithtown’s Marlene Wolke first.

Wolke’s desk literally sat outside Vecchio’s office door and she spent the past three decades welcoming the town’s movers and shakers in and out of the supervisor’s headquarters. Wolke announced she would be retiring this year, and her last day on the job was pegged for Wednesday, Nov. 25.

It’s been a long road for Wolke, across two different political parties, but she remained beside the town’s longest-serving supervisor in its 350-year history.

“He’s still here because people didn’t want to lose him,” Wolke said of her boss’s successful 38-plus years at the helm of Smithtown. “I think he’s done a great job and been a wonderful steward of the town.”

Vecchio described Wolke as loyal, competent and trustworthy as she held in confidence some of the most sensitive discussions relating to the town.

“Marlene was more than a secretary,” Vecchio said. “She really was an assistant. She was invaluable on so many occasions and I don’t know how I would have done what I do without her.”

Her office was located directly outside Vecchio’s door, where she sat in front of a big window overlooking the town. Framed photos of loved ones decorated the interior alongside stacks of various Smithtown newspapers. But even in her last week as secretary, Wolke kept it professional during an interview with Times Beacon Record Newspapers, often stopping herself to act as gatekeeper to those entering the Supervisor’s room.

Wolke’s first day on the job was July 3, 1978. When she took the job, she said she thought she’d be there for only two years.

She recollected her beginnings working alongside Vecchio fondly. She met him through her husband at the time, who worked as a detective with the New York Police Department.

“I met Pat at a meet the candidates night. He was a Democrat at the time,” Wolke said. “I worked with the party and helped get out the vote. I was even there on election night when he won.”

The next thing Wolke knew, Vecchio was knocking on her front door in Smithtown.

“He asked if I was looking for a job,” she said. “I was so nervous.”

From there, it was history.

Wolke remained Vecchio’s secretary ever since, and even switched with him from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party several years into his run as supervisor.

The now-retired secretary described her role as Vecchio’s “complaint department,” handling quality-of-life issues alongside several others outside Vecchio’s office in the heart of town. She and her colleagues have been the front lines for all things Smithtown for decades, and looking back now, Wolke said she had a lot to be proud of.

Her retirement has opened up a new opportunity for Wolke, who said she looks forward to spending time with her four kids and eight grandkids. She also said she has plans to travel down to Florida, in a camper with her husband and dog, to enjoy retirement in style.

“It’s not easy to retire,” she said. “But I knew it was my time. It just felt right.”

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