Town Hall Notes: Funding Approved for New Sports Fields

Two resolutions approved Thursday at a special town board meeting will result in improved and expanded playing fields in Riverhead – one at Stotzky Park, the other at a series of fields at the town’s Enterprise Park at Calverton, known as EPCAL.

For Stotzky, the board awarded a $340,000 contract to Happauge-based Bimasco, Inc. to turn what are now two muddy soccer fields into a multi-purpose field, with new sod and an underground irrigation system employing the same technology found at the new Yankee Stadium.

For EPCAL, the board approved a $44,000 contract with Cutchogue-based Corazzini Asphalt Inc. to lay down roads and a parking area that will allow a number of new fields, already planted with grass, to open. One will be a regulation-size field for hardball and two will be regulation-size fields for softball. There will also be two soccer fields.

The work being done at EPCAL will also provide access to the existing bicycle path that runs along the perimeter of the former Grumman aircraft assembly and testing facility.

Supervisor Sean Walter said the new field at Stotzky will be reserved for the town's youth and will be enclosed by a fence that will be locked when not in use by youth leagues.

“Some residents might not like the fact that the fence will be locked, but we can’t take the chance of the grass being beaten up,” Walter said. “We need it preserved for the kids.” Accordingly, he said, the adult soccer league, which used to play at Stotzky, will now play its games at EPCAL.

Councilman George Gabrielsen, town board liaison to the town’s recreation committee, emphasized that the $384,000 required to complete both projects would not come out of taxpayer funds. Instead, the money would be drawn from a special parks and recreation fund that developers pay into when they build a residential subdivision and can only  be used for recreation. 

According to Gabrielsen, the EPCAL fields should be ready for play in late spring. The Stokzky field, he said, will probably not open until August or September to give the sod a chance to take hold.

Skating on real ice

Having just proposed a plan for a synthetic ice skating rink downtown, Gabrielsen is now looking into the idea of converting the in-line skating rink at Stotzky Park into skating rink with real ice when the temperature drops below freezing.

All it would take, Gabriesen said Thursday, is for the town to spend about $5,000 to purchase a liner for the 70 feet by 140 feet rink, which could be taken up and stored once the weather turned warm. No refrigeration would be required, only cold weather.

Last month, Gabrielsen, along with Ray Pickersgill, president of the management association of Riverhead Business Improvement District, brought up the idea of building  a synthetic ice rink in the parking lot behind the Riverhead Grill to allow for skating all year round.

The synthetic rink that Gabrielsen and Pickersgill have in mind, however, would carry a price tag of roughly $200,000 and would depend on Riverhead’s receiving a grant from a Suffolk County program targeted to downtown revitalization.

No parking when it snows – maybe

Highway Superintendent George “Gio” Woodson appeared at Thursday’s town board work session to press for his proposal to prohibit all parking on town streets throughout Riverhead whenever a storm drops two inches or more of snow.

He said such an ordinance would not only allow his men to clear snow more efficiently but would also save the town the risk of liability should a snow plow damage a parked car.

Two board members, Councilmen John Dunleavy and Jim Wooten, said they supported the idea, but Walter and Gabrielsen argued that the ordinance would be overly restrictive, with Gabrielsen suggesting that it would be better to apply the rule only to roads that are known to create a problem.

The fate of Woodson’s plan will rest with Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, who wasn’t present when the ordinance was being discussed.

In an unrelated discussion, Woodson said his department would continue to provide paper bags for leaf collection for free to any resident in need of them. His original plan  was to provide bags only from September through December, but he said he has enough bags in stock to keep giving them out.

He said residents may pick up as many as 15 bags at a time at the highway department’s yard on Osborne Ave. every Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Proposed building on Sound Ave.

Richard Vlacci, the owner of  R&K Precision Auto Works, appeared at Thursday’s town board work session to present his plans to enlarge his car-repair facility, located on the south side of Sound Avenue, just across from the beginning of Park Road.

He said his business has grown so fast that he needs more room so his employees don’t have to work on cars outside.

Since what he would like to do would constitute an expansion of a non-confirming use, Vlacci would require a special permit from the town board. He would also need to receive a number of variances from the zoning board of appeals because the expansion he proposes is larger than what zoning allows.

Walter suggested that Vlacci appear before that zoning board first before the town board takes up his special permit request.  Dunleavy said he had already spoken about the expansion plan to residents of nearby Reeves Park and that no one voiced objections.

Revamped Web site

The town board gave its blessing Thursday for Lori Pipczynski, the town’s chief information technology officer, to move ahead with her plan to have an outside firm, Municipal CMS, redesign and update the town’s Web site.

The proposal, which would need to be approved by a town board resolution, would cost $12,000 for the initial setup, payable in installments over a five-year period. There would also be an ongoing annual fee of $2,400 for hosting and monitoring the site.

Pipczynski said the redesign and update would make the site more user-friendly and would enable departments to quickly update the data they provide the public.

She said that videos of town board meetings and the like could also be streamed on the Web site whenever a resident wants to view a meeting, rather than depend on when it appears on Channel 22.

After the redesign, the town’s Web address would change to Riverheadli.gov from  Riverheadli.com.