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Whether the public is actually benefitting from a lucrative lease agreement between the oyster company and the town is another question the baymen have been asking, especially given Oyster Bay’s recent financial troubles. The town is $878 million in debt. Last month it was subject to a ratings downgrade by Standard & Poor’s, citing a “negative outlook” and “financial deterioration due to operating deficits in each of the past seven fiscal years.” Yet instead of getting even at least the minimum fair market value for the valuable dock space land—and banking millions of dollars in the process, charge
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the baymen—the town is renting all that property to Flower, which online business directory Manta listed last year as netting between $20 million and $50 million annually, for a song, while also subleasing.
SWEETHEART DEAL
On any given day, Flower’s fleet of hydraulic dredge ships and suction boats can be seen plying through the waters of Oyster Bay Harbor, usually trailed by a thick cloud of winged scavengers feeding on the carnage of sea life left in its wake or atop its deck. Unlike 20- to 24-foot clam skiffs used by diggers such as Schultz and other baymen, these floating factories are near-impossible to miss.
L o n g I s l a n d P r e s s f o r A p r i l , 2 0 1 3 / / / w w w. l o n g i s l a n d p r e s s . c o m
When Flower’s six main vessels— which range from roughly 40 to 100 feet in size, say the baymen—aren’t slicing through the shell beds with cutting blades, emulsifying the sediment with highly pressurized jets of water, or utilizing massive vacuums to siphon and gobble up the bottom of the bay, they’re docked on a roughly 6.6-acre swath of prime, townowned waterfront property, known as Oystermen’s Dock. Dock and slip space is hard to come by along the harbor—and expensive. Other marinas and shipyards adjacent to Oystermen’s Dock, such as Oyster Bay Marine Center (OBMC) and the 97-slip town-run boat basin in Theodore Roosevelt park,
have waiting lists. Even mooring a boat— which is cheaper than renting a slip to dock and store a boat, whether during the summer or through the winter seasons— can cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Multiply that exponentially if you’re looking to anchor more than one boat. OBMC, for example, charges $1,710 for a 600-lb. mooring, which typically can hold a 51- to 53-foot-long vessel and $4,825 for a 2000-lb. vessel. Renting dock space is an entirely different ballpark. OBMC’s smallest slip, should you be able to secure one—which can accommodate a boat up to 26 feet in length—runs between $5,650 to $5,800. Slips for vessels up to 58 feet long cost between $12,800 and $13,100. That’s just for the summer season, which typically runs from April to mid-November. A 40-foot boat with a 17-foot-beam would tally $4,624 for winter season storage, for example. At the town’s Theodore Roosevelt marina, summer rates run $97.50 per foot during the summer and $30 per foot for winter storage. Yet, stress the baymen, Flower pays just $2,100 per year for use of the entire six acres, through 2015, according to its lease agreement obtained by Painter, just one of a bevy of Freedom of Information Law requests filed in 2011 that was just recently fulfilled. [Originally the town had told him “there are no such records.”] The rent increases by $200 every five years. Venditto voted in favor of the arrangement as town councilman in 1983, along with the rest of the town board, state the documents. “I want that deal!” booms Fetzer, a father of three who lost his son Matthew about five years ago, standing on a nearby dock. “There are delis in town that are not even 300 square-foot costing three grand a month, so three grand a month versus $2,100 a year—that’s a pretty sweet deal.” Schultz, who pays $1,500 a year just for the mooring of his skiff, wants an investigation. Painter estimates the oyster company’s true, fair market rent, were they not getting special treatment, should be around $100,000 annually—without taxes, for just the dockage. “It’s crazy!” blasts Schultz. “They shouldn’t have leases like that when they’re in such a financial hole.” “I don’t get it,” says Painter. “It’s taxexempt property. “I’m jealous,” he laughs. “Everybody would really want what Flower’s got.” “The taxpayers of the Town of Oyster Bay are being done a disservice, in terms of the amount of revenue that’s being garnered by the town for prime waterfront land,” slams Berger. “I would be abhorred if I was a taxpayer and I knew the terms of that lease.” “It’s too good of a deal,” adds Painter. “Taxpayers should be outraged. Outraged. Especially in this economy.” And the Clam Wars of Oyster Bay continue….