'Regrettable' Contract Passage Seeks To Discredit Opponents Of Hampton Bays Overlay District

Hidden among the pages of a contract with the consulting firm hired to provide services in the furtherance of resurrecting the Hampton Bays Downtown Overlay District zoning code is startlingly plainspoken language promising to “neutralize” opponents.

It’s so hidden that Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, who signed the contract, and Town Land Management and Development Administrator Janice Scherer, who reviewed the contract, both claimed that they didn’t see the surprising statement when it was brought to their attention on the morning of Tuesday, August 23.

It was on the first page, under the first heading of the proposal by the consulting firm Nelson Pope Voorhis, also known as NPV.

The proposed scope of work incorporated into the contract lists as its first task, “Community Outreach,” and states:

“As we go through the process of meeting with the community and various stakeholders, we will be able to clarify any of the opposition’s hot-button issues. We will seek to neutralize this by having them appear as traditional NIMBYs who consistently present misinformation to promote their own limited agenda and present a positive message through community leaders.”

The proposal estimates the cost of community outreach at $25,000 out of the over $200,000 it will be paid to redo work struck down in court last year.

Schneiderman, Scherer and Town Attorney James Burke, whose office was also tasked with reviewing the contract, denied any plan to summarily discredit objectors.

By Tuesday night, the Town Board voted to strike the offending passage from the contract with the firm. Apologies were offered by those involved, those who “missed” the passage, beginning with Schneiderman, who said, “I take responsibility … I am sorry.”

At the meeting on Tuesday night, opponent Ray D’Angelo read the offending passage to the board. “Don’t you people read these things before you sign them?” he asked.

Comparing the verbiage to an organized crime family contract, he said, “The whole tone is to shut us up and use our tax money to do it.”

A walk-on resolution crafted that afternoon and unanimously passed Tuesday night amends the contract to exclude NPV from any public engagement component of the process, and subtracts the $25,000 from the estimated cost of its involvement.

“That’s certainly regrettable language,” Schneiderman said, upon hearing the verbiage earlier Tuesday. “I don’t remember reading that.”

The community outreach section of the proposed scope of work was attached to the boilerplate contract. The supervisor said he only scanned the scope.

“If I had seen that, I would never have signed the contract,” he said. “I should have looked at it more carefully. I don’t like that language, I’m not comfortable with that language.”

The consultant’s outreach effort, he said, is supposed to build community consensus. “You work together — you don’t cast anyone in a bad light,” the supervisor said, adding that he believes all involved have the best interest of the hamlet at heart.

By Tuesday afternoon, he’d spoken with representatives from the consulting firm, who consented to have the entire section stricken from the contract.

“That language should never have been in there,” Schneiderman repeated. “It undermines public confidence.”

“That our elected officials would spend taxpayer money to malign us is beyond the pale,” said resident Elizabeth Hook. She said her head “exploded” when she read that provision of the contract. “I can’t believe they actually put in writing what we suspected all along.”

At the podium Tuesday night, D’Angelo called it “a smoking gun,” adding, “This is what people thought from the beginning.”

The resolution authorizing the supervisor to sign the contract with NPV states the company will perform engineering and consulting services to assist the town’s Department of Land Management with revising the district’s environmental review of the overlay district legislation. The court struck down the plan because the environmental review was deficient.

Hook noted that the town paid NPV $150,000 for its first overlay district effort, and is contracting for over $200,000 for work described as “tweaking.”

Speaking to the increased cost of the contract, D’Angelo said, “It’s a lot more expensive to neutralize people.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Schneiderman began, replying to D’Angelo. “I missed this.”

Rescinded and amended Tuesday night, Resolution 644, approved in June, states the town’s Land Management and Development had Administrator Janice Scherer reviewed the proposal.

“I didn’t catch that,” she said when asked during a telephone interview about the troublesome verbiage Tuesday afternoon. “It’s a major mistake,” she acknowledged.

Pulling up the document to read the section herself, she exclaimed, “Oh, God, no!”

“We’re not seeking to neutralize anyone. How could we? Is there any neutralizing Gayle and Ray?” she asked rhetorically, referencing board critics Gayle Lombardi and D’Angelo. Lombardi had successfully sued to have the original overlay district legislation annulled. It’s currently wending its way through the appeals process.

Asked if town officials directed the consultants to embark on a plan to discredit opponents, Scherer replied with an emphatic, “No.”

“We would never do that,” she said. “We’re a government. Everybody has the right to speak, everybody has the right to be heard.”

Burke deemed the passage “very unfortunate terminology and certainly not a reflection or the purpose of why the town retained Nelson and Pope.”

He, too, admitted his office missed it. The sentence is “so absurd,” he said, no one involved would have approved it.

The scope document contained within the contract is signed by Carrie O’Farrell, a partner at NPV. Scherer said the verbiage was added in by a public relations subcontractor. The subcontractor, said Scherer, specializes in getting approvals for developers.

“Carrie must have missed it,” she said.

O’Farrell did not return a call requesting comment but offered apologies “from the bottom of my heart,” speaking to the board Tuesday night via Zoom teleconference. Although each page of the scope is on her letterhead and she signed the contract, O’Farrell said she, too, didn’t catch the language. “It was absolutely my fault,” she said.

“Everybody’s telling me they take full responsibility, but ultimately the buck stops here,” Schneiderman said.

Now, he continued, “We have to do our best to rebuild public confidence. There’s never been any intention to do anything other than what the community wants, it’s the only driving factor.”

Said O’Farrell, “I absolutely understand the damage that was done by that statement.”

“At this point, the public relations side is just dismal, isn’t it?” Scherer offered Tuesday afternoon. “I don’t know how we’re ever going to do anything there. Let someone just propose a shopping center at this point.”

The specter of strip mall development was raised throughout discussion of the overlay district. It is permissible under current zoning, while the overlay district is touted by supporters as providing developers with more flexibility.

“I hope this unfortunate mistake doesn’t hurt the community’s ability to get the future for Hampton Bays they desire,” Schneiderman said.

Opponents seem to approve of a pedestrian-friendly revitalized downtown, with shops and cafes. What they oppose are an array of residential uses they say appeared in the plan counter to community desire.

Someone taking a massive financial risk to develop the hamlet needs to see a return on his investment, Scherer said: “They know they’ll have that income.”

Robert DeLuca, president of the environmental advocacy organization Group for the East End, is no stranger to the role of opponent. For decades, he’s spoken out against projects that pose potential threats to the environment.

Hearing the “neutralize” language in the contract, he quipped, “I appreciate the honesty.”

“This is the first time I’ve seen a community outreach contract where the scope of work was to neutralize the community outreach … The credibility of the outreach is based on the integrity of those doing it. It’s critical in any controversial project, really any project at all, that the referee comes to it with a certain level of objectivity.”

The Hampton Bays Civic Association is hosting a community forum on Monday, August 29, that will include an array of presentations related to the plan.

Calling it a “pep rally,” D’Angelo said the town should host its own forum, and “give everybody a chance to express how they feel.”