Riverhead Town Hall gazebo will memorialize employee Jack Hansen

An octagonal concrete pad, 8 feet across, has been poured on the lawn in front of Riverhead Town Hall, and next week a $1,000 gazebo — paid for by the town’s labor-management committee — will be placed on it.

It will be a memorial to Jack Hansen, the town’s financial administrator, who died in 2006 after working for Riverhead for 20 years.

The small gazebo is expected to get a lot of use by one elected town official, Town Clerk Diane Wilhelm. She is also a town marriage officer, who is authorized by New York State to perform weddings just like the two town justices and one town board member.

So far this year, Wilhelm has performed 88 of them — after her department issued the appropriate license.