Town Hall Notes: Arts Council to Seek Grant for Artist Housing Downtown

After receiving a go-ahead from the town board on Thursday, the East End Arts Council will apply next week for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts under the NEA’s “Our Town” program that promote arts and culture as fundamental components of urban renewal.

According to the council’s Executive Director, Pat Snyder, the application will be made in concert with Dee Muma, the owner of the Dark Horse on the corner of E. Main St. and Peconic Ave., who recently purchased the vacant building next door to her restaurant and plans to turn the top floor of it into affordable studios and living spaces for artists.

Muma’s renovation plans include creation of an indoor walkway from the parking lot to Peconic Avenue that would serve as a gallery for rotating art exhibits as well as historic photographs from Riverhead’s past.

Snyder said the grant money wouldn’t pay for the building’s renovation but would support marketing the studios and apartments and identifying and selecting artists for them. The grant could also support similar initiatives downtown as they develop.

Snyder compares Muma’s project – but on a much smaller scale – to Artspace in the Village of Patchogue, where a five-story building is being constructed to provide affordable studios and apartments to 45 artists. That project recently received a $1 million grant for the Ford Foundation.

As part of the grant application, Snyder said, Supervisor Sean Walter will provide a letter underscoring the town’s emphasis on arts and culture in revitalizing its downtown.

Though “Our Town” grants can be in amounts up to $250,000, Snyder said she plans to request $150,000, with the money Muma is spending on renovating her building serving as matching funds, an NEA requirement.

Town to offer early retirement

To save money by reducing payroll, the Riverhead town board is proposing to offer an early retirement package to town employees that would be identical to the package offered last year but would be broadened to apply to a wider range of employees.

Rather than be limited only to members of the Civil Service Employees Union, which was the case in 2010, this year’s package would be offered as well to police officers and non-union employees, including most department heads.

The proposal, which will be the subject of a public hearing on March 1 at 2 p.m., would offer a choice between the following:

• Fully-paid health insurance financed by the town for four years following retirement. Should the retiree die before the end of the four-year period, the town would continue to pay 75 percent of the cost of health insurance for the retiree’s dependents; or
• A lump sum payment of $400 per month, payable in quarterly installments, for four years following retirement should the retiree choose to pay for his or her own health insurance. If the retiree were to die before the end of the four years, the town would continue to make the payment to dependents.

Retirees would also be eligible to be paid for any unused leave time they have accumulated, with payments made within 30 days following retirement. They would also receive pensions, with dollar amount depending on their length of service as participants in the New York State Retirement System.

To be eligible for early retirement, employees must have worked full time for the town for at least 20 years and must indicate their intention to retire in a letter to Supervisor Sean Walter no later than May 2, 2011.

According to Meg Ferris, the town’s personnel director, three union employees took advantage of last year’s retirement package.

BID budget approved

Riverhead’s Business Improvement District will have a budget of $141,000 for the year, part of which might go to sponsoring a Mardi Gras-type event in the parking lot along the Peconic River, according to Ray Pickersgill, president’s of the BID management association.

Pickersgill said the event could serve as a replacement for the Riverhead Blues Festival, which has been held on a weekend in July for the past 12 years but which by its current sponsor, the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall – or, perhaps, not held at all.

The budget, approved Tuesday by the town board -- which serves as the BID board as well -- allocates $15,600 for the popular “Cruise Nights,” gatherings of car enthusiasts that were moved downtown last year after permission to hold them at the King Kullen shopping center in Wading River was withdrawn.

Pickersgill said cruise nights have been praised by restaurant owners for attracting families downtown. He said 26 such nights are planned, with BID funds going to provide refreshments and face painting for children.

The BID, a special taxing district, is financed by a taxes levied on businesses along Main St. from Town Hall to the Suffolk County Historical Society and north from the river to 2nd St.

Unrelated to the BID budget, Supervisor Walter said Thursday that he planned further discussions with a business group interested in docking a large boat downtown to offer dinner cruises up the river and into Peconic Bay for up to 150 patrons. He said if the idea looks promising, he would invite the group to a town board work session.