The TIMES of Smithtown
Volume 28, No. 6
Serving Smithtown • St. JameS • neSconSet • commack • hauppauge • kingS park • Fort Salonga April 9, 2015
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Planning Department keeps eye on shopping By phil corSo
Premiere Issue
LifestyLe Magazine
SPRINg FeveR 2015
INSIDe
Recycling program grows Town’s single-stream plan hooks up with Lloyd Harbor
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A proposal to rezone part of Route 347 near the Smith Haven Mall has the town Planning Department mulling over its roster of retail. At public hearings in November, the town board considered proposals to construct a 30,500-square-foot building on Route 347 near Alexander Avenue in Nesconset along with another 3,100-squarefoot building on Middle Country Road, making way for a potential shopping center to house restaurants and small office space, attorney David N. Altman said. But Smithtown’s Assistant Planning Director Dave Flynn approached the town board at a work session Tuesday morning to ask members to consider the application’s potential impacts, given an already robust level of business zoning in town. Flynn said he and the Planning Department staff delved into the potential shopping center when its applicant, Sun Enterprises Inc., asked for a rezoning of the area from residential, single-family to neighborhood business. The department then drafted a memo to the town board rec-
Retaining retail Photo by Phil Corso
Smithtown’s assistant planning Director David Flynn says a potential shopping center near the Smith haven mall could add to an excess of neighborhood business zoning in the town.
ommending the property be developed into garden apartments instead of retail because of what Flynn cited as a possible overabundance of business zoning in the town. “I felt it was my obligation to speak with you,” Flynn said to Smithtown Supervisor Pat Vecchio (R), Councilman Tom McCarthy (R) and Councilman
Ed Wehrheim (R) at the work session. “If the town board felt this should be explored, I would contact the property owner. It’s hard to measure the damage it would do.” Vecchio, McCarthy and Wehrheim heard Flynn’s considerations for the future zoning of the area, but leaned more on the side of following through
with what the board and the applicants had already started. “The applicant did his due diligence, and I think we should do ours,” McCarthy said. Wehrheim also said he had similar sentiments. “The applicant went through a lot to get to this point,” he said. “And now we SHOPPINg continued on page a12
Town revisits roads after Jorgensen’s arrest By phil corSo
Smithtown Highway Superintendent Glenn Jorgensen pleaded not guilty Wednesday to felony charges accusing him of tampering with public records for a town paving project, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said. Jorgensen, 63, of Saint James, was directed to appear in First District Court in Central Islip for his arraignment, where he faced several charges, including tampering with public records, falsifying business records, filing false records, official misconduct and grand larceny, relating to
incidents dating back to Nov. 18, 2014. The district attorney alleged that Jorgensen directed a highway foreman to alter road construction reports to conceal that he had approved a contractor, Suffolk Asphalt Corp of Selden, to pave at least eight Smithtown streets in freezing temperatures in November. The altered records misrepresented the weather conditions during the repaving work, Spota said. Jorgensen’s misdemeanor grand larceny charge also accused him of stealing a public File photo work order for the improper Smithtown highway Superintendent glenn Jorgensen faces charges JORgeNSeN continued on page a12 accusing him of falsifying public records related to a paving project.