All seven of the town’s school’s are participating, but only a small percentage of residents have joined in. Officials are encouraging more residents to participate, as the town has made it a priority to reduce the amount of garbage that must be trucked elsewhere for disposal.

Just inside the gate at the town’s Yard Waste Facility in Calverton are 16 bright green garbage pails in two neat rows, inside which ecological activity is in progress thanks to residents who deposit their food scraps there. Decomposing eggshells, coffee grounds, bits of carrots, cucumber peels, rotting tomatoes and various other decaying vegetables are a tasty treat for the fruit flies that are hard at work transforming the organic material into compost.

Riverhead’s food scrap program began with a three-month pilot several years ago. The town then reorganized to make it easier to catalog the food waste coming in and simpler for residents to register. The George Young Community Center in Jamesport was then added as a second drop-off point, with two bins.

“We want more people to take part in the program. We’re expanding the number of drop-off locations, and we’re working on having our crews go out to people’s homes to pick up the scraps,” said Drew Dillingham, Riverhead’s superintendent of sanitation. “The waste can’t have contaminants in it … things like wrappers and rubber bands.”

The program currently includes 80 participating residences, but Mr. Dillingham said the town wants to expand it to all 16,000 Riverhead households. Residents interested in signing up can contact the engineering department at Town Hall. 

Program participant Jean Bolger of Jamesport says she’s passionate about food composting and has changed all her habits since registering for the program. “I love talking about compost. I think my scrap bag was the first one to go into the bin at George Young,” she said. “I’ve been buying and using the town’s biodegradable bags for about a year and I have the counter top bucket — that’s where all my veggie scraps go. It only takes a few minutes and it cuts down on my garbage pickup.”

Sanitation officials are still experimenting with combining “green” vegetation (food compost) with “brown” (leaves, brush and twigs) to get the mix to the optimal temperature for turning out the best quality compost. “It might take another year to master it,” said Mr. Dillingham, and then the compost can be distributed to residents. The sanitation department plans to launch an education campaign as part of the town’s solid waste management plan.

“With over 10 tons of food scraps collected in under a year, we’re ready to expand to reach the goal of all 16,000 households in Riverhead participating. There are lots of grants from the USDA and the EPA for food waste reduction and collection, which creates vital soil for our farming community across the East End,” said Jason Blizzard, former principal engineering aide who left the town in Sept. The Town believes the program minimizes costs of waste hauling, lowers emissions from landfills and at the same time, returns organic matter to the soil.

Mark Haubner, co-chair of Riverhead’s environmental advisory committee, has worked closely with the town on the food scrap program. “Pure tonnage is the way to quantify the success,” he said. “It’s two- to-one methane mitigation, so for every ton of greens, we’re saving two tons of methane. This is non-partisan; everyone eats.”

“Over the last year, we did 10 tons,” Mr. Dillingham said. “That’s a lot!” With state grants, he’s also hoping to partner with Southold Town and expand the program across both municipalities. 

“It’s a little thing that everyone can do,” Ms. Bolger said. “I hope to see my compost out on the median in Riverhead someday.”

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Mr. Frost teared up at the sight of his supportive fellow officers and the look of pride of his family — wife Janine and sons Eddie, Garett and Kyle — in the audience at the special Town Board meeting on Wednesday.

“I would like to thank everyone that showed up here today to support this promotion. I look forward to working with you guys all closely — I probably supervised most of you throughout my time,” Mr. Frost said to the officers in the room. “I’ll do the best I can and I’m sure I’ll do well.”

The promotion by the Town Board followed the approval of Chief David Hegermiller’s retirement, who served in the role for the last 23 years and worked in the department for a total of 42 years.

Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard wished Mr. Hegermiller luck on his retirement and praised the former chief on how he led the department during “uncharted territory” at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This included Mr. Hegermiller’s effort to schedule vaccinations for first responders.

“I think the Riverhead Police Department — I don’t mean to insult any of our other agencies that are here — is one of the finest police departments around, and that credit goes right to the top, and it should,” Mr. Hubbard said. “[Mr. Hegermiller] really ran the town for quite a time, along with running the police department, and I will forever be grateful for him getting us through COVID.”

Mr. Hegermiller was not present at the special town board meeting for his retirement. The former chief has not responded to multiple requests for an interview.

The vote to appoint Mr. Frost to chief was unanimous between Mr. Hubbard, Councilwoman Joann Waski and Coucilwoman Denise Merrifield, with council members Robert Kern and Kenneth Rothwell absent.

“It’s been long time coming,” Mr. Hubbard said to the new police chief. “You’ve been a dedicated member of our department for 31 years and you’ve always worked your hardest at doing your job, and many of the men and women have worked directly underneath you were so ecstatic when they knew we were making you the next chief of police.”

Along with the town board, Ms. Waski congratulated Mr. Frost as well and encouraged him to “savor this moment.”

“I am part of the police family in more ways than than one and I know that you’re going to do exceptional things, and you are going to be the leader that you’ve proven to be in the past,” Ms. Waski said. “I have never seen the morale that’s in this room like it is today.”

Mr. Frost, 54, joined the Riverhead Police Department right out of the police academy in June 1994 and held various sergeant roles throughout his three-decades-long career. He was promoted to detective sergeant in 2015 and held that position until he became a lieutenant in 2021. The new chief has lived in Wading River for the last 36 years.

He has charged the Police Athletic League in Riverhead for the past two years, which is a nonprofit organization that provides youth sports programs throughout Suffolk County. He is also the head of the Juvenile Aid Bureau, where all youths who have committed a crime under the age of 16 are processed. This sector of the police department is also for the Youth Court, a voluntary alternative to the traditional juvenile justice system designed for first time offenders ages 16 and under.

At Thursday afternoon’s town board meeting, Mr. Frost discussed his longterm visions and plans for the police department, which currently has 96 officers.

Some of the changes he envisions includes strengthening community relations, addressing quality of life issues in the downtown area, partnering with other local law enforcement agencies, reviewing police staffing to get the number of officers up to 100, grant opportunities to assist the police department with equipment purchases and technological advances.

Mr. Frost is interested in installing additional cameras to key spots throughout Riverhead Town, obtaining fixed/mobile license plate readers and looking into IT programs and training that would aid officers in data analysis.

“I hope to be a fair but firm leader… if you respect others, it goes a long way,” Mr. Frost said. “I just want to be community-minded, I’m looking for technology advances because being a detective sergeant — investigation wise — [proper technology] is huge.”

In terms of building relationships with the public, Mr. Hubbard said Mr. Frost will be hosting three meet-and-greets at the Riverhead Senior Center, at Riverhead Town Hall and Riley Avenue Elementary School in early September for community members to come out and get to know their new police chief.

“It’s an honor for this,” Mr. Frost said. “This is such a tremendous responsibility that I take very seriously.”

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The applicant, the Metro Group, has now joined forces with Heatherwood and Ornstreet Development LLC on the project, which, if built, would sit in between the 116-unit Riverview building and East End Arts. 

Heatherwood has said it plans to own the property and rent the market-rate units should the project be approved. 

The proposal calls for 52 studio apartments;, 80 one-bedrooms and 33 two-bedrooms. It also proposes about 6,000 square feet of amenities and retail space on the ground floor. 

The developers are seeking exemptions from sales and use taxes in connection with the renovation, exemptions from mortgage recording taxes in connection with the financing of the project, and abatements of retail property taxes consistent with the uniform tax exemption policies of the IDA. 

The applicants also said they will create 155 parking spaces. 

“We see ourselves stemming the tide of people leaving New York,” Sean Sallie, development director of Commack-based Heatherwood, said at a town meeting last year. 

“We’re an owner-operator as well as a builder. We’ve never sold a property,” Mr. Sallie said at that time, adding that they are still three years away from building any retail or restaurant space and want to be flexible.

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The town acquired that property for $20 million from Peconic Bay Medical Center in 2022 and, at the time, town officials said they planned to move most town offices into the Second Street building, including the town clerk, tax receiver, community development agency, town attorney and council members.

The new Town Hall opened for business Oct. 4, with a ribbon cutting celebrated by nearly 200 community members and local officials.

“Today’s dedication will also commence the process of converting the former town hall into a justice facility adjacent to our police headquarters,” Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said.

The purchase included the bank branch building — formerly occupied by M&T Bank — on the corner of Roanoke Avenue and West Second Street as well as a vacant two-story building on the corner of Second Street and Griffing Avenue and a sizable parking lot with access from Railroad and Roanoke avenues.

“This location and its proximity to downtown is a synergy to a perfect revitalization effort,” Ms. Aguiar said. “Located 500 walking steps from our downtown main street, Town Hall is now the perfect complement to the ongoing downtown revitalization efforts underway.”

Ms. Aguiar listed some of the amenities in the new building.

“Our new Town Hall is located at this beautiful four-level glass and brick building containing approximately 42,000 square feet of floor-to-ceiling windows, flooding the interior with natural light, while affording panoramic vistas of our downtown along with a state-of-the-art boardroom and state-of-the-art great conference room,” she said.

PBMC Foundation chairperson Emilie Roy Corey and former PBMC president and CEO Andrew Mitchell were present at the ceremony as well. Ms. Corey snipped the ceremonial ribbon with Ms. Aguiar.

After the ribbon-cutting, all attendees were invited to tour the building.

Aside from the Town Board room, offices on the first floor include town code enforcement, the assessor, town clerk and tax receiver.

The second floor houses the building department, planning department, purchasing, human resources and community development.

Located on the third floor are the supervisor’s office, Town Board offices, executive conference room, town attorney’s office, accounting office and Information technology office.

The lower level comprises a café marketplace and kitchen, freight entrance, storage and town historian’s office.

In her 2023 State of the Town address on Dec. 4 — her final speech as town supervisor — Ms. Aguiar detailed the ways in which “the foundation has been laid for River- head’s bright future” under her leadership.

One of Ms. Aguiar’s most notable accomplishments — and her proudest, she said — was the new Riverhead Town Hall.

Come January, supervisor-elect Tim Hubbard will sit in the third-floor office. On election night in November, he thanked his family, friends and town employees.

“Our town workers are the backbone of the workforce of the Town of Riverhead,” Mr. Hubbard said. “I can’t thank all of them enough for what they do each and every day. … We’re here because of you and we love to work with you. And we appreciate everything you do every day.”

ORIGINAL REPORTING BY THE NEWS-REVIEW STAFF

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“Today’s dedication will also commence the process of converting the former town hall into a justice facility adjacent to our police headquarters,” Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said.

The old Town Hall on Howell Avenue will become the new town Justice Court, dedicated to the late Town Justice Allen Smith in a ceremony on Oct. 24 at 1 p.m., Ms. Aguiar said.

Riverhead Town closed the purchase on the former Peconic Bay Medical Center administration building in January. The $20 million purchase includes the bank branch building — currently occupied by M&T Bank — on the corner of Roanoke Avenue and West Second Street. It also includes a currently vacant two-story building located on the corner of Second Street and Griffing Avenue and a sizable parking lot with access from Railroad Avenue and Roanoke Avenue.

“This location and its proximity to due downtown is a synergy to a perfect revitalization effort,” Ms. Aguiar said. “Located 500 walking steps from our downtown main street, Town Hall is now the perfect complement to the ongoing downtown revitalization efforts underway.”

Ms. Aguiar, the Town Board and all who made the move to the new town hall possible, were congratulated by notable local former and current government officials which included Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine, Southold Town Board Member Jill Doherty, Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski and more.

“Riverhead is on the move,” Mr. Romaine said. “It is the official county seat of Suffolk County.”

Ms. Aguiar listed some of the amenities in the new building.

“Our new Town Hall is located at this beautiful four-level glass and brick building containing approximately 42,000 square feet of floor to ceiling windows, flooding the interior with natural light, while affording panoramic vistas of our downtown along with a state-of-the-art boardroom, and state-of the-art great conference room,” Ms. Aguiar said.

Mr. Krupski said the town is taking advantage of a wonderful opportunity in using the building.

“It’s better for the employees because they got to have a great space to work in. It’s much better for the public, because I think the public access should be improved by having this wonderful building,” he said.

PBMC chairperson Emilie Roy Corey and former PBMC President and CEO Andrew Mitchell were present at the ceremony as well. Ms. Corey snipped the ceremonial ribbon with Ms. Aguiar.

After the ribbon cutting, all attendees were invited to take a tour of the building.

Aside from the Town Board room, offices on the first floor include town code enforcement, town assessor, town clerk and tax receiver.

The second floor of the new building houses the building department, planning department, purchasing, human resources and community development.

Located on the third floor is the town supervisor’s office, town board offices, executive conference room, town attorney’s office, the accounting office, and Information technology office.

The lower level is comprised of a café marketplace and prep kitchen, freight entrance, storage and town historian’s office.

Riverhead Ciderhouse, Café Victoria and Suffolk County and others donated refreshments and plantings for the celebratory day.

Ms. Aguiar thanked numerous town official for coordinating the transition including Office Assistant Natalie Prevette, Purchasing Agent Teresa Baldinucci, Network and Systems Administrator Chip Kreymborg, and Town Board Member Bob Kern.

“Any published author will convey, some chapters are more difficult to write than others,” Ms. Aguiar said. “Today’s chapter, the new Town Hall chapter, is a result of many rough drafts, many revisions and tireless final edits by countless individuals spanning over two decades.”

See more photos below:

Photos by Melissa Azofeifa

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Verna Campbell, one of the longest-serving and most colorful employees at Town Hall — who served seven supervisors across 37 years — was laid to rest Friday following a funeral at Community Baptist Church on Sound Avenue. She was 90 years old.

From the late 1970s until her retirement at the end of 2014, Ms. Campbell was the Town Hall switchboard operator, greeting everyone who called or entered the building from her perch at a desk just inside the front door.

“As people walked in, she was the first person they saw and she just greeted everyone so warmly,” said Town Clerk Diane Wilhelm, a close friend of Ms. Campbell. “She was the voice — because she was the switchboard operator — so she was the voice of Town Hall as well as the first introduction. If you came in often, you knew her well. And if it was your first time, she treated you like an old friend.” 

Ms. Campbell’s daughter, Bonnie-Sue Luce, said the job was her mother’s “opportunity to be with the pubic and represent the town. She loved every aspect of it with her whole heart. It was so much what she wanted to be; she wanted to be seen and heard. She loved Riverhead and she very much loved being a part of Town Hall.”  

Longtime Town Hall denizens loved her, too.

“She was there the longest and she was this smiling person and she was happy and she could sing and she loved her church — and everything about her was just positive,” said veteran Riverhead attorney Peter Danowski. “You don’t say that about many people.” 

Ms. Wilhelm and several other local officials said that while Ms. Campbell treated everyone kindly, she had a special affection for Mr. Danowski, a former Riverhead town attorney. 

“Oh my gosh, she loved Peter,” Ms. Wilhelm said. “They had known each other such a long time and Peter’s really a great guy and she’s just a joy so they just had that kind of chemistry. She adored him and he adored her. It was really sweet.” 

Mr. Danowski was modest, but honest. 

“I’m not sure it’s unique to me,” he said of Ms. Campbell’s affection. But then said without prompting,  “I used to tell her when she’d give me a hug and kiss, ‘Verna, don’t you get your lipstick on my collar or I’m going to be in trouble when I get home.’ ”

Whenever Mr. Danowski ran into Ms. Campbell at her favorite lunch spot, Meetinghouse Deli on Main Road in Riverhead, he’d buy her lunch, according to deli employees and other friends of Ms. Campbell. 

She ate the same meal every time, said Meetinghouse Deli manager Melissa Carragher. 

“Turkey, with Muenster cheese and Russian dressing,” Ms. Carragher said. 

“She was definitely one of kind,” she said. “One of those unforgettable characters. Everyone who works here knows exactly who she is.” 

“She’s a legend,” added deli worker Tina Green.  

One time, Ms. Campbell gave her town hall colleagues a scare when she was late to work one day about a decade ago.  

“I ran to the supervisor’s office, because she was never late, she was always early,” said Ms. Wilhelm. “And I ran in and said ‘something’s wrong. Verna’s not here. And they had a police officer go to her house for a wellness check … and he woke her up.”

Ms. Luce credits her mother’s intense faith with a trip to New York City with her mother — Ms. Luce’s grandmother — to see Southern Baptist preacher Billy Graham. She and her mother met Billy Graham’s wife and the revival left a deep impression on young Verna. 

Ms. Luce said her mother “loved the beach.

“She felt closed to God at the beach.” 

Mr. Danowski said Ms. Campbell’s good cheer was infectious in town hall for decades. 

“Her spirit boosted everybody’s spirits,” he said. 

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The town acquired that property for $20 million from Peconic Bay Medical Center last year and town officials say they will move most town offices into the Second Street building, including the town clerk, tax receiver, community development, town attorney and councilmen.

The town will pay Petrocelli Contracting 10% of the town construction costs, which have yet to be determined.

“We don’t have to go out for a request for proposals,” said Councilman Tim Hubbard. 

“He was the right choice because he built the [Second Street] building, so he knows it inside and out. That’s why we decided to go with him. We can hit the ground running.”

The building had been occupied by Suffolk County National Bank for many years before selling it to PBMC.

Mr. Hubbard said the town is being told that PBMC will be out of the the Second Street building by the second week of May.

The hospital plans to relocate some of its offices to the former Mercy High School building, on the corner of Ostrander Avenue and Middle Road. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre shuttered the school in 2018. 

“Once they are out, the bids will go out to have the work done and once we get the bids in, we can start doing the renovations that need to be done,” Mr. Hubbard said. I’m guessing we’ll be in the building by the first of the year.” 

Amy Loeb, the executive director at PBMC, could not be reached for comment. The hospital is already using a portion of the Mercy space.

Two town functions that will remain at the current Howell Avenue site are the police department and the justice court.

The police department will expand into the court building, and the court, in turn, will take over all of current Town Hall, so that both the police and the courts will have an entire building. 

Petrocelli Contracting has been involved in numerous projects in downtown Riverhead, often restoring historic buildings that had fallen into disrepair. It built the Long Island Aquarium, which opened in 2000, and two hotels that surround it on East Main Street. 

Last year, the contracting group was also named master developer for the proposed Town Square project. 

According to an application letter submitted to the Riverhead Industrial Agency in September, Petrocelli is also involved in the redevelopment of the Enterprise Park at Calverton with Calverton Aviation and Technology and will construct Phase I of the project. 

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The purchase price was $20 million, according to Amy Loeb, the executive director of PBMC.

Riverhead Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar and the Town Board issued a press release confirming the deal Wednesday afternoon.

The town closed on the purchase of 4-6 W 2nd St and 214 Griffing Avenue in downtown Riverhead in a building that had housed Suffolk County National Bank for many years. 

“This town purchase will allow for the much-needed expansion of Riverhead’s police department, the town Justice Court, and enhance services to our community,” Supervisor Aguiar said. “We thank the Peconic Bay Medical Foundation for working and partnering with us on this much needed effort in our community.”

PBMC will move from the Second Street building to the former Mercy High School building, which is adjacent to the hospital, as well as into another smaller leased space in Riverhead which the hospital has yet to close on, according to Ms. Loeb. 

The PBMC Foundation acquired the Mercy property in 2020.  

The proposed deal between the hospital and town was first made public in August of 2022 and has moved quickly. 

“I am impressed and thrilled with the work of the town to get this done so quickly,” Ms. Loeb said. 

She said there will be a phased approach to moving out of Second Street and into the former Mercy site and said work on moving employees into Mercy building is “moving along.”

Town hall employees could begin moving to the new facility soon.

“We expect transitioning to commence in three months and the full transition to occur by the end of this year,” Ms. Aguiar said.

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The space will provide a home for many of Riverhead Town’s departments, from the supervisor’s office, to the building and planning department, town attorney, code enforcement, assessor and more.

“Officially entering into contract brings us one step closer to finally realizing the entire Town Board’s goal of establishing a new, modern Town Hall,” Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said.

PBMC and the town jointly announced the $20 million plan in July.

The downtown campus had once been home to Suffolk County National Bank. PBMC had used the former bank building, located at 4 West Second St., as its administrative headquarters. 

PBMC plans to reinvest the funds from the sale into its emergency department expansion, women’s health services and further ambulatory expansion.

The transition is expected to begin within three months and will take approximately one year to complete, according to the supervisor’s office.

In a statement, PBMC executive director Amy Loeb said the new venture will “enable us to expand our medical infrastructure and services to the community.”

PBMC plans to move its current operations to the former Mercy junior high school building. In 2020, the PBMC Foundation acquired the former Mercy High School campus, which had been closed since 2018.

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