EPCAL WATCH COALITION
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Reginald Farr Coordinator Associates LI Pine Barrens Society Richard Amper Group for the East End Bob
De Luca North Fork Environmental Council Mark
Haubner Defend H2O Kevin
Mc Allister Open Space Council Karen
Blumer Michael
Madigan Riverhead Neighborhood Preservation
Coalition Phil
Barbato Seatuck Environmental John
Turner Long Island Sierra Club Charles
Brevington Audubon Society Patricia
Aitken Greater Calverton Civic Toqui
Terchun George
Bartunek Janice
Sherer Greater Jamesport Civic
Patrick Derenze Northville Beach Civic Linda
Prizer Kathy
McGraw Sound Park Heights Civic Michael
Foley Wading River Civic Sid
Bail Barbara
Blass Angela
De Vito Christy
Hawkins John
McAuliff Doug
Rosenbrock Rose
Sanders |
156
Youngs Avenue Riverhead, New York
11901 631.369.8237
May 26, 2021
Yvette Aquiar, Supervisor
Members, Riverhead Town
Board
Town of Riverhead
200 Howell Avenue
Riverhead, New York 11901
RE: Scrambul Drag Racing at EPCAL
Madame Supervisor and
Members of the Town Board:
EPCAL Watch looks forward to the
results of your review of the application and contract with Scrambul for use of
the runways and adjacent land for drag racing next month.
We are concerned how this project
could have come this far without consultation with the civic association and
population of Calverton, the hamlet mostly directly affected, and without basic
due diligence about the autosports and business credentials of the applicant.
Did
you vet the applicant sufficiently to be confident
he and his company can fulfill contractual obligations?
Scrambul was incorporated on December 7, 2020 and has
no record of business. According to its
New York State registration it had 1500 shares of stock valued at $.01 per
share. The application shows the same
person as President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer, hardly the way to
describe a real corporation.
The Town Attorney said at
the work session that he was going to request information about prior
experience. What did he find out? A video was shown to the Board purporting to
cover safety provisions but it was an amateurish promotional production. The Scrambul web site lists six venues for
races but only Riverhead is confirmed.
Did Mr. Murphree or his staff in the
Planning Department make any effort to have Mr. Baxter correct his woefully
inadequate and inaccurate application as was done for Mr. Scalzo? Why didn’t Mr. Murphree warn the Board of
these problems at the work session or Board meeting?
Flaws in the Short Environmental Assessment
Form
Attached is an EAF generated by the NYSDEC
computer app for EAFs. There are many
inconsistencies with Mr. Baxter’s EAF, including
§ its designation of the site not being in a state designated
Critical Environmental Area
§ the
claim there will be no substantial increase in traffic. With 1000
attendees already purchasing racer and spectator tickets, how could there be no
traffic?
§ the
claim that the site does not contain any species of animal or their habitats
listed as threatened or endangered. This is patently false and should
have been picked up by the Town reviewers
§ the
claim that the site is not the subject of remediation for hazardous waste, also
patently false and should have been
§ the
claim that the grasslands, and therefore grassland dependent bird species and
other wildlife, will not be adversely affected. It was stated that there will
be no activities on the grass yet that is not what the diagrams of the two
runways show. Those illustrations show handicap and paddock parking,
timing trailers, and fire/rescue vehicles in the grasslands.
§ the
total acreage of the site of the proposed action is shown as 2921 acres.
Do they intend to use all of EPCAL?
§ total
numbers on one or both days could easily exceed 1,000 including racers,
spectators, children, staff, volunteers, vendors, security, etc. That possibility obligates a mass gathering
permit. [“Special
event large gathering. Where 1,001 to 4,000 attendees are expected at
the event per calendar day”]
Will the town independently monitor
numbers admitted to the site on each day and require admissions be halted if
the total number present will exceed 1000? Have you seen their sales reports that
indicate tickets sold to racers, including "crew members", and
number of one day spectator passes for Saturday and for Sunday as well as two
day passes?
Problems in the Special Events Application
§ Andre
Baxter is entered as a “person residing in Suffolk County”, but his residence
is in Hempstead in Nassau County. On one
of the affidavits he gives an address of Long Island City, Queens. What are the implications of not being a
Suffolk County resident for the application, for additional payments for
“day-of” services, and for the Hold Harmless obligation?
§ The
total people per day and per hour is listed as 150. What is the revised figure? Do spectators at such events stay for the
rest of the day once they enter or remain only for an hour or two? As noted above, have you seen their sales
reports that indicate tickets sold to racers, including "crew
members", and the number of one day spectator passes for Saturday and for
Sunday as well as two-day passes?
§ The
Parking section is out of date, indicating 250 parking spaces on site and none
off-site. What are the revised numbers?
It is necessary to issue a Rescission
of the Type II/Negative Declaration and replace it with a Type I/Positive
Declaration
The questionable Type II
SEQR designation is presumably based on NYCRR 617.5(b )(21) which states: "(21) minor temporary uses of
land having negligible or no permanent impact on the environment". While
one could reasonably argue that the use proposed will not have permanent
impacts, they are hardly negligible given their potential impact on grassland
dependent wildlife at the worst possible breeding and nesting time.
The size of the event requires Type
I pursuant to NYCRR 617.4(bI)(6)(iii) as follows:
(6)
activities, other than the construction of residential facilities, that meet or
exceed any of the following thresholds; or the expansion of existing nonresidential
facilities by more than 50 percent of any of the following thresholds:
(iii)
parking for 500 vehicles in a city, town or village having a population of
150,000 persons or less;
Scrambul has sold tickets for four
hundred cars to participate as competitors.
Ticket sales for spectators are at least six hundred. Additional staff, volunteers, crew members
and vendors are likely to increase the number of vehicles over the 500 limit. Presumably some of the cars will be brought
on truck drawn trailers which will remain on the grounds.
Type I classification and issuance of a positive declaration
requires preparation of an EIS which would go into granular detail about all
aspects of the proposal and require a discussion of mitigation measures and
reasonable alternatives as follows:
(v) a
description and evaluation of the range of reasonable alternatives to the
action that are feasible, considering the objectives and capabilities of the
project sponsor. The description and evaluation of each alternative should be
at a level of detail sufficient to permit a comparative assessment of the
alternatives discussed. The range of alternatives must include the no action
alternative. The no action alternative discussion should evaluate the adverse
or beneficial site changes that are likely to occur in the reasonably
foreseeable future, in the absence of the proposed action. The range of
alternatives may also include, as appropriate, alternative:
(a) sites;
(b)
technology;
(c) scale or
magnitude;
(d) design;
(e) timing;
(f) use; and
(g) types of
action.
Unanswered
Questions
We assume many if not all of the following
questions are already on the lists of the town’s professional staff and in your
minds as you consider how to resolve the many problems associated with this
event.
§ Where is Exhibit A (a depiction of the premises) mentioned in
paragraph B of the Short Term Runway Agreement with Scrambul
that is the subject or Resolution CDA 2021-5?
§
Is this missing depiction a
revision to the Scrambul site plans they displayed at the April 29th Town Board
work session?
§
Has Scrambul submitted any
revised site plans or are those from the April 29th work session still
accurate?
§
How can Scrambul make the active
FAA runway, Runway 14/32, available and prevent any use of it that might
interfere with the runway’s use when the Scrambul site plan shows concessions
and restrooms will be located on that runway not to mention two drag racing
tracks?
§
The Scrambul site plan shows
parking along runway 14/32. Is that still the plan? If so why does the
Runway Agreement at #13 talk about a parking plan to be submitted not less than
14 days before the start of the Term of the Agreement (Term of the Agreement
starts June 17 so plan must be submitted by June 3rd) and why is there mention
of shuttle service and authorization from owners of property that may be used
for parking?
§
Is the yet to be revealed traffic
plan (also due by June 3rd) to be implemented by a private company not the Town
Police?
§
How can the Town give Scrambul
exclusive rights to the use of these two runways for this event when the Town
has another lessor, Robotics Inc, that leases and uses a portion of these
runways?
§
How and where will spectators be
controlled? The Scrambul site plan shows a small area for spectators adjacent
to runway 14/32. Will there be a fence around the area? At the work session, Scrambul
said spectators will not be permitted to go to Runway 5/23: how will they be kept
from going there? How will they be kept off the protected grasslands?
§
The Scrambul website says there
will be no bleachers but spectators can bring chairs and EZ tents. Where can they set
these up?
§
In social
media there have been references to overnight camping or parking at the
site. Has that been discussed and/or
explicitly prohibited?
§ The
Scrambul site plan shows only a fence between the spectators and the race track,
no concrete barrier. Member Rothwell at the work session asked for a revision
of the placement of concrete barriers. Has that revision been received? What
does it show?
§ What
kind of concrete barriers will be used?
Jersey or Texas barriers such as used during highway construction? How many will be rented and brought it by
special trucks?
§ The proposed Short Term Runway Use Agreement, Paragraph D states
that Scrambul shall pay rent for, "Surface use for Runway 5/23 and Runway
14/32, associated taxiways, and other areas". What are these unnamed
"other areas"?
§
Because Scrambul has no
established corporate identity or credit record, will you apply 255-10 D? “The Town Board may require the
applicant to provide a letter of credit, bond or other suitable security
instrument to secure compliance with conditions in the permit for an event to
be conducted on Town property and to insure adequate cleanup of the property
after the event. The Town Board shall set the amount by resolution, and no
permit shall be issued until the security has been provided to the Town Clerk”
§ Have
you ascertained the views and received clearance about drag racing at EPCAL from
the Suffolk County Department of Health, the Department of Environmental
Conservation, the Calverton National Cemetery, the Gold Star Mothers and the
residents of Calverton and other nearby communities? Has a
completed application as revised been filed with the Suffolk County Department
of Health Services?
§ Is
Scrambul planning to add any chemical or material to the surface of the
runways? Will it be cleaned off after
the two days of races? Is there any risk
of surface or water contamination in bordering areas?
§ Did
each member of the Board receive notice of the Fire Marshall’s findings and
review them? Has that now occurred? Is it available to the public?
§ What
state and local laws, rules and regulations were used as indices of sufficient
compliance?
§ Are
the Standard Operating procedures [SOPs] and policies referred in the
application attached to the public safety plan?
§ Are
the EMT/EMS staff members the only emergency personnel that will be on-site?
§ Is
the Manorville Volunteer Fire Department going to be on-site for the entirety
of the event? If not, what is their
anticipated time of arrival as needed? And who will intervene until they
arrive? What other fire departments have
signed on to assist?
§ What
type of staffing, including volunteers?
What are their qualifications and credentials to perform requisite
services including but not limited to EMT/EMS?
For example, have staff been trained in traffic zone safety?
§ Is
there a separate first aid tent for spectators or are services for possible
non-life-threatening injuries incorporated into the anticipated EMT/EMS
services?
§ Is
it realistic to project that the EMS access time to an incident via each of the
four access points mentioned in the plan is only two minutes?
§ There
appear to be provisions for evacuation of staff, autos and associated auto
drivers/staff. But where are the
provisions for the spectators?
§ Have
all the vendors been identified? Do all
have the requisite SCDOH permits?
§ Is
the signage sufficient? Where exactly
will they be located to allow for ease of viewing? The event maps/plans do not show such.
§ 1,000
spectators and their cars now anticipated, what is the number of portable
toilet facilities that will be available?
(Estimates of usual use call for about 23 uni-sex units, not counting
ADA compliant units.) How many units
will be ADA compliant? How many times a
day will they be cleaned? Will each unit
have hot and cold water available for handwashing as well as single use towels
for hand drying? Will facilities for
female patrons be equipped with sanitary item disposal containers? Will there be attendants/volunteers present
to assist with maintenance, ensuring the units remain clean and sanitary?
§ What
materials will be used to suppress/put out any fires/explosions that may occur
as the result of an accident/mishap? Do we
have the MSDS sheets for these substances?
Do any of the firefighting materials contain regulated chemicals such as
PFOS?
§ What
chemical substance will be used to enhance track traction? How is it disposed of once it is applied to
the runways?
§ How
many trash/waste material containers/barrels will be on-site? How often will they be emptied during each of
the 12-hour days?
§ Will
spectators be allowed to bring in coolers and food stuff? How will the event applicant control for
on-site use of alcoholic beverages, whether they arrive with the event goers or
are sold by vendors?
§ Is
the Town of Riverhead, including our EMT/Ems services and police services [our
traffic control officers] going to be assigned to this event? If so, what are the anticipated costs to the
Town and how will these be met? Will
staff be taken off normal operations and assigned to EPCAL?
§
Has the Police Chief reviewed the proposed
traffic control measures, and if so can his findings/report please be shared
with us?
§
How
will Town re-coup money spent to have Town employees at the site each day of
the event? Has a budget for projected
salaries and benefits been developed and presented as an appendix to the
proposed contract?
For the above reasons and pending
questions as citizens of Riverhead, we see no alternative but to rescind the
approval under article § 255-13. “statements contained in the application are
materially inaccurate” and accordingly, permanently table the proposed contract
until a new application is approved. If
a more accurate application is presented, we hope it will satisfactorily
address the following problems:
Additionally these
requirements from Chapter 255, Article II - Special Events of the Code have not
been met:
Section 255-9C(4) -
application must include an environmental impact study
Section 255-11B - in
determining whether to approve or deny an application the Town Board shall
consider the information provided including: (1) the environmental impact
study
(8) - verification that
the information contained in the application is not found to be false or
nonexistent in any material detail.
Sincerely,
Rex Farr
Coordinator
