Civic Association Meeting Draws Large Crowd

The Greater Calverton Civic Association meeting at the Riley Avenue School on Monday evening (February 6) drew a capacity crowd. Workers had to distribute additional folding chairs to handle the unanticipated numbers of interested citizens. The program provided enough interesting agenda items for the audience which consisted of regular members as well as guests from surrounding areas.

Start your engines please..............wait a minute. Not so fast!

Mark Leibowitz representing the F1 Go Cart Racing facility for proposed location on Edwards Avenue made the first presentation. Complete with story boards, slides and video, Leibowitz made his case for replicating their existing facility (in Massachusets) here on Long Island, specifically on 12 acres of vacant land just south of the Fed Ex facility on Edwards. During the question and answer period many objections to the facility were voiced by various parties many of whom either lived or operated businesses in close proximity to the proposed race course.

The operator of the Calverton Links (located just south of the proposed course) speculated that the go-cart noises greatly exceeded those of his golf carts and would find objection to that noise from his golfers. The owner of a 43 acre horse breeding farm also objected to the race course suggesting that the go-cart noises would be detrimental to the horse farm operation and consequently reduce the value of that operation.

Leibowitz stated that an independent testing company has been contracted to ascertain the levels of noise which could be expected from the raceway. It should be noted that several members of the board have made visits to the Boston facility to inspect the quality of the raceway operation. Traffic, noise, taxes, potential effect on surrounding farms, homes and businesses must all be taken into account before even a preliminary concept is approved.

Asphalt Plant-Reclamation-Rezoning

Councilwoman Barbara Blass presented a carefully worded update on the status of the Reclamation Project and the asphalt plant. Apparently the Board and Town engineer are upbeat about the prospects of utilizing much of the sand (cleaned and screened) to refill parts of the Reclamation property as well as being able to export much of the sand to other areas as well as to other asphalt plants for processing.

The bad news was that there is more sand than originally estimated and while the original completion date for this phase of the operation was to be in May 2007, it has now been rescheduled for completion in September 2007.

Little was said about the prospect of the asphalt plant reopening although the Board feels that won't happen. The Board is trying to renegotiate the Reclamation Project with the contracted operator, Grimes. This would appear to be the essential ingredient in keeping the asphalt plant shutdown for good.

Crown Sanitation - a confusing issue.

Much of what was said here is a repetition of what we have heard for 3 years. There was discussion about how much of the property is being used for the recycle operation, eyewitness observation of huge mounds of debris, an estimated use of about 5 acres being used for their operation when they are limited to just over 2.0 acres. Most startling, however, is the fact that Crown has been operating without a C.O. ( a violation of NY State law). The Board takes this up today!

The Group Home - in The Manors - Stranger than Fiction

This was a little difficult to understand. Basically a Suffolk County agency is pushing this on the community with the sponsorship of a County legislator!!!! What? The house, located in The Manors, is a 4 bedroom home with an alleged (no permit) 2 bedroom addition built on to it. The proposal is that the house would be converted to an 8 bedroom house for occupants and staff. A circular driveway would be installed and a dumptser installed at the side of the house. This situation is quite confusing and the Association is trying to work with the Town to resolve issues.

We Have Added a Link To The Calverton Civic Association

In view of the activity exhibited by the Greater Calverton Civic Association, I thought it appropriate that we include a link to their site on this blog.