Town Hall Notes: Ambulance Barn to Get Central Air

The Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps has been authorized to install central air conditioning at its headquarters and ambulance barn on Osborne Avenue.

At a special town board meeting Thursday, the board voted unanimously to go out for bids on the job after learning that central air conditioning would be the most cost-effective way to conform to state standards requiring medicines to be stored below a temperature of 77 degrees.

Last month, corps president Ron Rowe had offered the board a choice – either to air condition the barn or retrofit four ambulances with climate-controlled storage units.

Rowe estimated that central air would cost $24,000, versus the expected $36,000 needed to retrofit the ambulances and install a refrigerated storage locker at the barn.

Town to join purchasing consortium

In an attempt to save money through consolidation, the town board voted 5-0 Thursday to have Riverhead join a partnership formed last year by Nassau and Suffolk counties aimed at achieving economies of scale by collectively bidding on the purchase of goods and services common to county and municipal governments.

Called the Long Island Intergovernmental Relations Purchasing Council and open to all towns and villages on Long Island, the consortium helps local governments reduce costs through volume buying of such diverse items as cars, paint, fuel, computers, road-sanding salt, paper, playground equipment and accounting services.

Neighboring Brookhaven joined the council late last year.

Town seeks engineer

Riverhead is in the market for an assistant town engineer following the resignation last month of Christine Fetten, who accepted a job with Southampton as director of the town’s facilities management department, a senior slot that not only encompasses building maintenance, but engineering and waste management as well.

According to a help wanted ad to be posted next week, applicants must possess a New York State professional engineer’s license and says that a “thorough knowledge of the principles and practice of civil engineering as they apply to public works is preferred.”

Public hearing on medical offices

A public hearing is schedule for Tuesday, June 14, to take up a special permit application from developer Ira Chernoff to construct a two-story medical office building on Main Road in Aquebogue just east of Route 105.

Though zoning for the parcel allows office buildings on the site, the structure Chernoff plans to erect is larger than the code allows, thus requiring a special permit from the town board.

Riverhead seeks ice rink grant

Following approval by the town board on Thursday, Riverhead will make an application for a grant from the county’s downtown revitalization fund to help pay for the installation of a synthetic ice rink in the parking lot along the riverfront.

Ray Pickersgill, president of the Business Improvement District, said the BID would be willing to pay what is needed out of its surplus funds to supplement the maximum of $100,000 the county would provide if the grant were approved.

According to Pickerskill, the rink and a skate-sharpening machine would be expected to cost a total of $227,000.