Tale of tape: Riverhead Town pays for extra rock

Sometimes, you have to get down on your hands and knees and actually measure things to be sure you are actually getting what you paid for, even if what you are buying is a million-dollar renovation job.

About two years ago, Riverhead’s town board authorized a $1.3 million renovation of the town’s historic old park, and final touches — like a new pedestrian crosswalk — are just now being completed.

There is a new fish ladder for migrating fish to get up a spillway by the dam, new benches, many plantings, and a lot of curving paths made of rock — bicycle-friendly and also environmentally friendly, since rainwater will go right through without picking up any oil.

But, it is hard to measure just how much stone was used. So town engineer Ken Testa and workers from Terry Contracting and Materials — which did the job — recently walked up and down the paths, measuring their width every four feet.

When they finished, it was determined that the town used a little more rock than anticipated, so the town board this week approved a check of $1,021.08 to close the books on the project.

But, Testa said Thursday, the last time the work was checked he found the town used about $3,000 less in other materials, so the $1.3 million project actually came in about $2,000 under budget.