Squabbling in North Haven Over Park Work

North Haven Mayor Chris Fiore has come under nearly constant fire in recent months from critics who say he approved work last year, without the proper authorization of the State Department of Environmental Conservation, at the community park being developed on two adjoining parcels — the Lovelady Powell property and Cilli Field — that stretch between Route 114 and Sunset Beach Road.

Fiore, in turn, has insisted that most of the work — clearing paths and adding gravel to them, removing dead tree limbs and planting grass seed — has been done in areas beyond the DEC’s purview. He said a DEC official gave the village the verbal go-ahead to clear dead wood and invasive species from Cilli Pond, a long, narrow man-made pond that is not included on the DEC’s wetlands maps, which it uses to define its jurisdiction.

“There is a venom there I cannot comprehend,” Fiore said of his critics, who have included James Vos, a former member of the nonprofit organized to raise money for the park and create a plan for its development; Susan Reed, a resident who chastised the mayor at a recent board meeting for not getting formal DEC permission; and Trustee Terie Diat, whom Fiore defeated in last year’s mayoral race and with whom he is often at loggerheads.

Nonetheless, because of the concerns that have been raised, Fiore said he had ordered a halt to additional work until formal approval in the form of a letter of nonjurisdiction can be obtained from the DEC.

“Did I get a letter of nonjurisdiction? No,” Fiore said this week. “Have I applied for one? Yes.”

He added that he was confident the agency would allow the work, which would include removing invasive plants from the perimeter of Cilli Pond and replacing them with native plants.

The mayor’s latest actions appear to have at least partially assuaged the concerns of Vos, who was one of four members of the North Haven Village Trails and Parks Association who abruptly resigned in March over what he said was the mayor’s overbearing approach.

“He just bulldozed us over” while the committee was trying to take a more low-key, deliberate approach to the development of the park, Vos said.

After resigning, Vos sent out emails to a broad mailing list and letters to The Sag Harbor Express criticizing the mayor’s approach. But now, he said, the mayor seems to have come around.

“Enough light was shined on the situation that the mayor, being a politician, pulled a U-turn and appears to be doing all the right things now,” he said.

But Fiore insisted he did nothing wrong to begin with.

He said the Trails and Parks Association had done little to develop a plan for the park or raise money for it. Although the association has about $131,000 on hand now, Fiore said he procured the largest single donation, for $100,000, to date. Plus, he said, the association got bogged down debating whether Powell’s house could be saved and possibly repurposed for affordable housing.

A year ago, in April 2022, as it sought to get started on the park, Fiore said he communicated with Kevin Jennings, the DEC’s regional manager for ecosystem health, by email and Zoom, to find out whether the DEC had jurisdiction over Cilli Pond, or if it only had jurisdiction over a smaller pond just off Sunset Beach Road.

In a follow-up email, Billy Hajek, the village’s environmental consultant, summarized that conversation to confirm the DEC did not consider Cilli Pond in its jurisdiction. Jennings, in turn, responded that Hajek’s finding “accurately summarizes our discussion,” but he concluded that he still wanted to confirm with a colleague that Cilli Pond was, indeed, exempt from the DEC’s jurisdiction.

“Billy agreed that the email we got from the DEC was adequate permission,” Fiore said. “And since then, Bob DeLuca [the president of the environmental organization the Group for the East End] has basically confirmed that a year later.”

At a May 17 North Haven Village Board meeting, Reed asked the mayor whether he had ever formally received a letter of nonjurisdiction from the DEC and criticized him for failing to follow proper procedure.

“Most of this seems to be done by the seat of the pants,” she said this week of Fiore’s approach, which she described as frantic and, at times, even chaotic. “For the millions of dollars the CPF spent to acquire this beautiful and fragile piece of property, we do expect some professional planning — we expect a design plan and a management plan.”

Diat said that when she began collecting signatures to run for reelection this year, several citizens voiced their concerns about the way the mayor was managing the park and that from her review of the emails, “I did not interpret them to say there was an affirmative yes, okay, to clear” along Cilli Pond.

“Whether or not the DEC gave permission to clear, it is still a wetland,” Diat said. “The village should be held to at least the same standards, if not higher, than its residents.”

Some village observers, speaking anonymously, have said that Diat, who was defeated handily by Fiore in last year’s mayoral campaign, has been systematically trying to build a case against him for next year’s mayoral campaign by constantly criticizing him during public meetings.

Diat scoffed at that suggestion.

“There is nothing political about it,” she said. “I have no intention of running again for mayor. I want to do the best job I can as trustee. At the end of the day, we all have the same objective: We want it to be a beautiful park. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be following the rules.”

Both sides have sought the input of DeLuca of the Group for the East End, and both have concluded he supports their position.

In an interview this week, DeLuca said both sides are correct — to a point. “It’s certainly a legitimate concern for people to say, ‘Shouldn’t this be regulated?’ and a reason for the village to say, ‘We don’t have to ask the DEC,” he said.

At a recent meeting with Fiore, DeLuca said he advised him, “if you want a community park, the stakeholders should have a role in it.” He suggested that the village should reach out to Southampton Town to help it craft a management plan for the property.

“You can get a good outcome here if everyone is willing to bring the temperature down,” he said.