Voters reject $123M bond to rebuild Riverhead schools

An ambitious $123-million program to rebuild Riverhead's public schools was rejected by district voters Tuesday, with 2,274 people voting against the proposition and 1,385 supporting it.

The defeat by 889 votes was far more than the 176 absentee ballots, which were not counted last night and could not have changed the outcome of the vote.

"Today may be a loss for the children of the school district, but there's always tomorrow," said Superintendent Diane Scricca. "We did all the right things. I feel really good about what we presented to the community."

There was no immediate decision on what to do about the $22 million in long-overdue repairs, which district officials said would be done as part of the construction program.

Scricca said that could be discussed by the school board at its next regular meeting on Feb. 23.

School board member Timothy S. Griffing said he was disappointed by the rejection. He has two children in the district, and both would have graduated before the four-year reconstruction project was completed. "You want to leave something for the kids [the students of the district]," he said. "This [bond proposal] took us five years."

Another school board member, Christine Prete, said it was unlikely she would vote for another bond issue. "This was it. This was plan Z," she said.

The district's bond vote would have called for spending $90,214,845 for renovation and expansion of school buildings, and $32,725,056 for other work not involving classrooms. The other work would have included rebuilding the high school track, renovating the school bus garage, and taking down and removing about two dozen portable classrooms scattered across Riverhead.

School officials estimated that the owners of a typical $400,000 house would have paid a maximum of $270 more to their annual tax bill a year from 2013 to 2018, a figure that would have gone down to about $208 a year from 2019 to 2030.