Southold Town officials are preparing for a roughly five-year renovation of Town Hall and the Annex. with the Town Board as they settled where municipal departments could be relocated as the project moves into its planning stages.

The renovation would be completed in phases, with officials first developing a plan for the entire building before determining the order in which individual areas will be renovated. 

“Before we can move forward with trying to get plans and specs done for the complete renovation as a building, we have to agree and lock where departments are going to be at the end of this renovation process,” said Town engineer Michael Collins at Wednesday’s work session.

The majority of the departments will be moving, but the Planning Department, Land Preservation Department and the town historian will not. Mr. Collins said their staff were satisfied with their current space and layout.

The Town Attorney’s Office would relocate to the current court office area, while Code Enforcement would move into the space currently occupied by Records Management. The Zoning Board of Appeals would move to the former Town Attorney’s space on the second floor, giving the board roughly twice its current floor area.

The Building Department would expand into the first-floor space currently occupied by the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Town Trustees. Additionally, the Comptroller’s Office would expand into an adjacent office. 

Under the proposed layout, the Town Clerk and Records Management offices would move into the renovated former bank area, along with a new office for the Town Trustees. 

The former bank area is being renovated as part of the project. The plan says putting the Town Clerk and Records Management Offices there is what helps create the chain reaction throughout the municipal building. 

The project could include upgrades to the buildings’ heating, ventilation, electrical and plumbing systems, as well as additional meeting and office space, climate-controlled records storage and improvements to employee and public areas.

“It’s going to be an RFP for a soup-to-nuts design and engineering, permitting, all of that for the whole building, including laying out the stages — what happens when, who moves when,” Mr. Collins said. “It’s going to be like a five-year plan, and then you can work in pieces.”

Town Supervisor Al Krupski said an earlier plan had the Town Clerk’s Office being move into the Annex’s lobby area. 

“I put a pause on that because we should do a complete renovation,” Mr. Krupski continued. “We need to do a complete renovation because we need that space to stage everyone else’s operations during the renovation. 

The building was bought by the town in 2018 for $3.1 million, and since then, has been drawn and redrawn different ideas, totaling a “hodgepodge of about 150 different scenarios,” Mr. Collins said. 

Mr. Krupski told The Suffolk Times that he’s unsure when the next set of drawings will come before the board. 

“It’s a wonderful building, it’s ours. We need to keep it upgraded,” Mr. Krupski said. 

Southold Public Safety Task Force will be transitioning into a Public Safety Committee

The Southold Public Safety Task Force will be transitioning into a Public Safety Committee, as voted on by the board on Wednesday night. 

The committee will be made up of two members to represent the Anti-Bias Task Force, two members to represent the Police Advisory Committee, two members of the Police Department, including the School Resource Officer, one representative of the school districts, one Village of Greenport elected official, one community business leader, one representative of the houses of worship within the Town of Southold and two Town Board Liaisons, one from the Anti-Bias Task Force, the other from the Police Advisory Committee who will serve as Co-Chairs, as read in the resolution.

“The Public Safety Committee, acting at the direction of the Town Board, is charged with communication, education, and coordination, regarding the public safety response procedures, including working with the Police Department to develop educational materials explaining those procedures, what residents can expect from the Department during outside agency operations, and how to report through 911 or police headquarters,” the resolution said. 

This will shift will take effect immediately. 

Deer Management Task Force meets

The Deer Management Task Force met Aug. 31 to discuss the expansion of crossbow access, greater flexibility for handling harvested deer and potentially professional sharpshooters, because town officials say recreational hunting cannot and will not reduce the herd enough. 

The committee also discussed the possibility of working with the New York State Department of Health on whether the deer situation could qualify as a “health hazard.” 

Town Councilwoman Alexa Suess said the committee considered declaring a state of emergency, but it would be extremely difficult to obtain, though a health-hazard declaration could potentially open up additional legislative options for Southold to manage the deer population. 

Erosion mitigation at Town Beach

A couple years ago, Government Liaison Gwen Schroder, with the help of Mr. Collins, Highway Superintendent Dan Goodwin and town GIS John Sepenoski, worked on applying for the New York Sea Grant to help the erosion at Town Beach. 

“We were not awarded the grant, and the grant was basically for a soft launch towards mitigating erosion at the beach,” Mr. Krupski said Wednesday morning at the work session. “Luckily, we didn’t get the money, because it would’ve been a plan or something that would not have held up under nature’s demands. The grant was reapplied for and we were approved for it this year.” 

The changes to this year’s grant application included Mr. Collins taking a cobble approach, rather than sand, which ultimately led to the approval. 

Mr. Krupski explained some specifics that will need to happen to mitigate the erosion, including raising the elevation of the parking lot and potentially raising the adjacent county road. 

Officials said the road is included as a priority in Suffolk County’s coastal resiliency plan, and they also discussed pursue the county and federal support, including conversations with the county executive and Congressman Nick LaLota. 

The post Southold maps out five-year overhaul of Town Hall appeared first on The Suffolk Times.

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