July 30, 2026
Dear Supervisor, Members of the Board and Town Clerk,
I see that you are moving ahead with the Petrocelli hotel at
Tuesday’s Board meeting. Needless to say I plan to speak against the
resolution approving a special permit and site plan.
In order to avoid the confusion at the hearing, I am
attaching three photos that I wish to show during my remarks. Please
confirm that will be possible. I am requesting “equal time” for the many
slides shown by hotel proponents during the hearing because I was not afforded
the same opportunity. I need these slides to illustrate the dramatic cost
of letting Pertocelli take over half of the town square.
Current rendering (Suffolk Theater at top)
ChatGPT version with hotel (approximate proportions)
ChatGPT version with no hotel
Please clarify how this resolution relates to the
closing. Will that require a later resolution with the sale price and
other financial arrangements?
I gather that you decided that you can proceed this far
without action by the IDA. I remain concerned that the language of the
Master Developer agreement makes a favorable decision by the IDA a foregone
conclusion. What will happen if the IDA acts independently and
rejects Petrocelli’s old school corporate blackmail? King rooms in his
Hyatt hotel run $600 daily during the high season. Presumably the price
will be higher in the more fashionable Peconic hotel and he hardly needs the
extra benefit to his profit line of tax forgiveness subsidized by taxpayers and
the school system.
There are some operational questions that I hope you can
answer at this meeting:
1. When and why did the
Town agree to substitution of extra luxury hotel rooms for
condominiums? Why did you give preference to eighteen transient
seasonal hotel rooms over provision of twelve long term upper end housing
units with parking?
2. Are you still giving
parking places for out of town hotel guests priority over local clients
for the Suffolk Theater, Maximus Gym, Robert James Salon and Goldbergs who
will face long walks with limited lighting.
3. How do you practically
avoid traffic disrupting U turns on East Main Street by hotel guests
coming from the east and north?
My larger conceptual questions remain:
1) Have you asked Mr.
Petrocelli to construct a model so that you can fairly evaluate the impact
of a five story hotel on the historic Suffolk Theater and East End Arts
Council buildings?
2) Have you honestly
considered whether removing the hotel from the Town Square better honors
“furtherance of the goal to create a public gathering space with
pedestrian connectivity and open vistas from Main Street to the Peconic
River”?
3) Are you uncomfortable
that no bid contracts and insider dealing create the appearance of a
Riverhead version of the corruption in Washington associated with the
destruction of the East Wing of the White House, the construction of a new
ball room and the reflecting pool debacle?
I have little hope that the carry-on members who dominate
the Board will change their minds about this out of control project. But
I do encourage the Supervisor to recall his skepticism about the hotel when he
was a candidate. Voters in November may consider attitudes about
diminution of the Town Square relevant to their choice.
John McAuliff
Riverhead Watch
Rolling Woods
The evolving and growing
hotel
April 2022
August 2025
August 2026
the Master Developer Agreement for the Town Square, which
propose the construction of a five (5)-story 69,738 sq. ft. gross floor area 94-room hotel, which includes retail
spaces, a restaurant, cafe, hotel common spaces and amenities, as well as nine (9) parking stalls on
the lowest level,
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Message to an IDA member
August 2, 2026
There is nothing on the IDA website or the Town posting of
meetings about an IDA session on August 3 or an agenda. Aren’t both required
for an official meeting of a public agency?
I did review the video record and all I can find is that on
December 16, 2025 when the IDA accepted a resolution to approve the
Petrocelli application In the words of the chair, “It’s simply accepting
the application; and the resolution clearly states that we are not making any
determinations or approvals at this point in time. Simply that we are
going to engage in reviewing the application.” Another member
said that there had been agreement, presumably, in private discussion, to bring
them in “as soon as practicable so they can review the most recent plan…to hear
the latest … so maybe we’ll try to do that at the next meeting.”
However, in the only three subsequent meetings (January,
February and March of 2026) there is no reference to the Petrocelli
application. Is it fair to conclude that no action has taken place of any
kind?
Given the seriousness of the issues involved, I assume the
IDA will take up the Petrocelli application with rigorous due diligence and
will consider:
1) Procedural
problems: no bid contract, inside deal, limited transparency, lack
of public consultation about use of half of the town square for a hotel
2) Long term irreversible
impact on the architecture and character of downtown
3) Alienation of public
parkland for private profit
4)The cost of the project ($35.1 million) and of tax forgiveness (sales and use tax, mortgage recording tax and real property tax exemptions with a Payment in Lieu of Taxes)
5) The effect on the school
budget
6) Impact on community
housing stock of turning 12 condominiums into 18 transient hotel rooms
7) Damage to existing
businesses of denying convenient parking to their established clientele in
order to satisfy hotel requirements
8) Financial viability and
funding of the project with or without IDA subsidy
I look forward to learning on Monday or at a subsequent
meeting how IDA plans to proceed.
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Facebook post from Doug Young of Wading River
This proposal raises serious questions about transparency, fairness, and whether Riverhead is following its own rules — and residents deserve straight answers.
No competitive process. For a project of this scale, the Town should have issued a Request for Proposals. A competitive RFP protects taxpayers and helps ensure the best possible outcome for the community. Bypassing that process isn't a technicality — it's a choice.
Public resources, private benefit. This project receives public subsidies and depends on the Town's public parking garage to support its operations. Infrastructure built with taxpayer dollars should serve the public broadly, not function as a built-in advantage for a single private development — one that already holds the dominant market position for hotels in this area.
Ethics questions that deserve answers.
New York State campaign finance records show that Petrocelli-related entities contributed approximately $11,600 to Riverhead Town Board members, former officials, and the Riverhead Republican Committee between 2005 and 2025.
Under Riverhead's own Code of Ethics, when an elected official receives more than $1,000 in campaign contributions from a person or entity with business before the Town, disclosure — and in some cases recusal — is required before participating in any related official action.
Former Councilwoman Jodi Giglio exceeded the $1,000 threshold across multiple campaign cycles
Tim Hubbard received $1,750 from Petrocelli-related entities in a single campaign
Kenneth Rothwell received $1,000 from HP East End Riverhead LLC during the 2024 election cycle
Whether any of these circumstances triggered a disclosure or recusal obligation is a question for the Town Ethics Board. But residents deserve to know whether those requirements were met — and whether any required disclosures appear anywhere on the public record.
You can review the campaign finance data yourself (Made by B. Carroll):
One more thing. I was also disappointed that the lone Democrat on the Town Board did not vote against this proposal/resolution. Ethics and accountability aren't partisan issues. When public money is on the table, when the competitive process was skipped, and when the ethics code may have been implicated, every member of the board has a responsibility to ask hard questions — regardless of party.
Transparency isn't optional. It's the baseline expectation for public office.
For those who've suggested I run: the answer is no. There are people with direct municipal administration experience who would be far better suited. What I can do is keep asking questions and making the public record easier to read.
It matters who you vote for. Vote.
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More pictures and analysis
