Resorts money will go toward tax relief
But move to redirect cash from recreational fund miffs YMCA
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The Town Board this week rescinded a resolution that would have directed $5 million from its pending land deal with Riverhead Resorts toward a recreational facility and an animal shelter.
That move didn't sit well with folks at Peconic YMCA, who say they had been promised some of that cash to help build a "Y" near Stotzky Park in Riverhead.
"I'm floored," Joe Van de Wetering of the YMCA group said of the Town Board vote. "That was a deal we got the previous Town Board to agree to ... although they didn't take an official vote because they wanted to leave it to the next board.
"Do they want a recreation facility in the town or don't they?" he fumed.
The original resolution passed in January 2008. But it also specified that $3 million the town was to receive from Riverhead Resorts a year after the contract be used to establish a "public benefit fund" for the "purpose of supporting and contracting with not-for-profit entities ..."
The town has since received the $3 million, but Supervisor Sean Walter said that money is now in a tax stabilization fund.
Peconic YMCA was hoping to get some of the $5 million to offset costs on its proposed facility on county land south of Route 58, Mr. Van de Wetering said.
He said the group had already received private commitments for $6 million of the projected $8 million cost of the facility, and that the town money would have put them past the $8 million goal.
Mr. Walter said one problem with the original resolution was that it was poorly worded. He noted that the town is committed to the YMCA and could always go back and re-do the resolution concerning the $5 million.
But, he added, Riverhead needs the Resorts money it already has to offset taxes now.
"The problem is that the Town Board in 2008 committed to paying money out of our what we now call our general reserve fund, and we can't afford to do that," he said.
"In 2008, things weren't that bad and the town could take $3 million here and $4 million there," Mr. Walter said. "We're not in that situation, and we can't have people saying, 'Well, I have this resolution and I want this money.'ââ"
In November, when the previous Town Board was developing the 2010 budget, town finance officer Bill Rothaar claimed that money from the Resorts deal could not be used to lower town general fund taxes. Since then, Mr. Walter said, the town has received a legal opinion saying those funds can be used.
"I think everybody in town wants the YMCA here, but I don't think the public benefits from it are going to rise to the point were they would get taxpayers' dollars," Councilman Jim Wooten said last week.
"The YMCA has a benefit, but I don't know why they'd feel that's their money," Councilman George Gabrielsen said.
tgannon@timesreview.com
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1 comments found
High on something : 2/6/2010
Disney world was completed in 1973 the final cost of construction, land, material, display and other expenses is estimated at 331,000,000.00, THAT WAS IN 1973. (source="WIKI ANSWERS") What kind of pie in the sky dreams are these fools talking about? They must be inhaling something other than air.
