Supervisor Jim Dougherty reviews Island topics during radio appearance

Perhaps the new town-sponsored porta-potty in the Bridge Street parking lot is a temporary step before one day replacing septic systems with sewers on the narrow spit of land, Supervisor Jim Dougherty told a radio audience on WLNG Wednesday afternoon. The Heights Property Owners Corporation has a committee exploring various options for improving its sewage treatment operations, including the possibility of working with the town for state or federal funding to allow extending sewer service to the Bridge Street area, he said.

Dory owner Jack Kiffer has maintained that the reason he can’t open his bathroom to non-customers is that his limited septic system can’t handle the addition of another 150 people a day using the facility.

The HPOC flirted briefly early this year with the possibility of tying into Greenport’s newly refurbished sewer system, but met with resistance from groups such as the North Fork Environmental Council concerned that a pipeline across the harbor could result in leaks that would pollute the water. Village Mayor David Nyce told NFEC officials he thought it would be better to extend service east and west of Greenport but not across to Shelter Island.

ferry rates

In Mr. Dougherty’s wide-ranging hour-long radio question and answer session, he talked briefly about a Ferry Advisory Committee meeting to be held on Monday at 7 p.m. at Town Hall to discuss the proposed South Ferry rate hikes. If granted, there would be an average rate hike of about 15 percent increase.
The proposed rate increase will also be the subject of two Suffolk County Legislature hearings, one in Hauppauge on June 5 and the other in Riverhead June 19. Following those hearings, the County Legislature will vote on whether to allow the requested rate increases.
non-conforming uses

On Friday, June 8, beginning a 5 p.m. the Town Board will hold a hearing on proposed changes to the code dealing with non-conforming commercial uses in residential areas. The topic has been a hot-button issue with some arguing that the town should leave the code as is and others asking for tighter restrictions on non-conforming uses.

The latest proposal seeks to clarify when a non-conforming use would lose its legal pre-existing status as a result of disuse. The current code allows one years of “discontinuance” before the use is considered to have been abandoned. The new proposal allows 24 months and gives the owner the option to ask for annual extensions for up to five more years.

Seven years “some of us feel, may be unduly generous,” Mr. Dougherty told his listeners Wednesday.
As for properties that neighbors may consider “derelict” because of discontinued use, Mr. Dougherty said the town has to make a decision based on whether there is a safety issue posed by not requiring an owner to take remedial action.

4-Poster deployment
The supervisor said that while the town was “delayed in our deployment” of 4-poster deer-feeding stations this year to try to decrease the tick population, the units are in place and functioning. He blamed the delay on “some licensing issues.” Public Works Commissioner Jay Card Jr. explained the delay resulted because the town originally planned to hire an outside vendor to handle the stations but bids were too high and would have destroyed the town’s program.
When the decision was made to bring the project in-house, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation worked with the town to hasten the time it would take to train and certify a pesticide technician, Mr. Card said. But he said the late start was the reason the 4-posters weren’t deployed until May when late March or early April would have been optimum.
Mr. Dougherty said the town has already seen “dramatic results” in past years from using the 4-posters.

Beaches
Mr. Dougherty was upbeat in his radio conversation about an “informal discussion” he said he’d had a couple of weeks before in Yaphank with representatives of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services about public swimming at Fresh Pond, Shell Beach and Menhaden Lane.
“We’re all working together,” Mr. Dougherty said, noting that a town task force that includes Police Chief James Read, town attorney Laury Dowd and Mr. Card has been instrumental in arranging for the new signage and working with the county to resolve issues of beach usage.
“I think it’s all going to work out and we’re going to preserve the tradition,” he said, referring to the fact that generations of Islanders and visitors have been swimming in areas not legally qualified to serve as public beaches. “Everything seems cool,” he said.

Fiscally sound
Without going into detail, he said based on first quarter numbers, the town is “ahead of budget” and fiscally sound. This year, taxes remained flat, Mr. Dougherty said, predicting that the next budget would come in under the state-mandated 2 percent tax cap.