After months of mounting frustration from residents, business leaders and his own colleagues, Greenport Mayor Kevin Stuessi on Thursday night publicly addressed long-standing delays in launching emergency repairs to the Mitchell Park bulkhead — while also teasing an “exciting” announcement tied to the village’s stalled ice rink project.

At a tense Village Board meeting, a succession of speakers pressed the embattled mayor to explain why more than $4 million in grant funding awarded in 2024 remains unclaimed, and why progress on two of the village’s highest-profile projects has appeared to stall.

The confrontation followed a North Fork Sun report published Wednesday detailing how millions in grant money tied to bulkhead repairs and the proposed skating rink have yet to be secured — and how trustees say they have been left in the dark for months.

Stuessi attributed delays in the emergency bulkhead work to weather and, once again, insisted that the project will begin imminently. He also promised to convene a “special” Village Board meeting in the coming weeks to provide long-awaited updates to the public.

‘A full accounting’

Last week, Greenport Business Improvement District President Rich Vandenburgh sharply criticized the mayor and board for failing to even complete paperwork required to access $1.2 million in state funding awarded by Gov. Kathy Hochul in summer 2024.

He “respectfully demand[ed]” that officials allow the BID to take over the project or share responsibility with the board for moving it forward.

This week, village resident Marisa Harney directly confronted the board (see video below).

“By now I assume everyone has seen the article in the North Fork Sun regarding the grants that have been languishing with the Village of Greenport, along with the underlying projects that are intended to be funded with them,” she said, adding that “it should be noted that these are topics that have been discussed before.

“There have been several attempts to find out what the status of these are, and those attempts have been public … At this point, I’m standing here … I’m embarrassed, I’m disappointed, and frankly, I’m outraged that this has gone on as long as it has.

“Trustee has at its root the word ‘trust,’” she told the board on Thursday night. “I don’t know how that can apply to this group, given the inaction, fiscal irresponsibility and lack of communication. If you aren’t getting responses for the information that you need, demand — then sound the foghorn here in Greenport. There’s no transparency, and we need a good stiff breeze.

“I respectfully request — no, I demand, as a resident, a taxpayer and a voter — that we get a full accounting of where these grants stand, along with the status of the underlying projects they are meant to fund, and along with the status of the vacant village administrator position, as well as many other open issues that have been discussed at these meetings — but that transparency is still just talk.

“Please,” she implored the mayor, “do something about them.”

Village trustees have said repeatedly in interviews with the Sun that the mayor’s failure to replace village administrator Paul Pallas, who retired in early 2024, has delayed multiple projects, village-wide.

Dinni Gordon, chair of the village’s Affordable and Workforce Housing Committee, echoed some of Harney’s concerns and proposed an urgent but simple fix: a standing “update segment” at each meeting to give residents clear, consistent information.

“You could even … say ‘it’s going to be five minutes … but we’re going to tell you what’s happening with the bulkhead, and we’re going to tell you …’ Part of the problem is that, without that kind of thing, rumors abound.

“I have heard two vastly different rumors about when and if [a new] village administrator will arrive. You know that? And why should we all be gossiping about this? I’m not really interested. I just want to know a single, factual message.”

Later, Stuessi said a village administrator has been hired, but said he was prohibited from identifying the person or providing a start date yet.

By the end of the meeting, each of the mayor’s fellow trustees had, in turn, pressed him for more information about projects they say he has too tightly controlled.

‘Enormously complicated’

At Thursday night’s meeting, Stuessi said the board will schedule a “special meeting” in the coming month to provide updates on sewer extensions, a sewer study, accessory dwelling units and housing initiatives — along with the bulkhead and ice rink projects (see video below).

He again described the bulkhead work as “enormously complicated,” citing the involvement of multiple agencies, and again said construction is now ready to begin.

At a meeting last fall, under similar pressure to explain why the emergency bulkhead work was facing continual delays, Stuessi insisted work would start in December. On Thursday, he pointed to storms and freezing conditions as the cause of the latest delay.

“In regards to the bulkhead work, it’s enormously complicated with the initial work that is starting because we have state, federal, county, Long Island Rail Road — everybody involved back behind the museum,” the mayor said at this week’s meeting.

“But I am pleased to say that our contractor, who was brought on for that emergency work, is prepared to start. They have actually mobilized. There is a significant amount of equipment and directional barriers back behind there, but they haven’t been able to start due to the massive storm and the freeze we had, and so they’re reprioritizing some of the things back there.

“I met with them yesterday on site. They’re reorganizing some of the work over there. They will be starting on the significant trenching for electrical over there, and they’ve been doing some remediation over behind the museum and the immediate repairs.”

The Sun visited the site behind the museum on Friday morning and found only a single hydraulic excavator and no directional barriers (see pictures and video below).

He also referenced unspecified “inaccuracies” in recent reporting about the project and suggested trustees had not been excluded from the process.

“The village board is required for anything that we are planning to do — to go through engineering, to go through bids, etc. We can’t wave a magic wand. These things also have to be funded. And so as part of our executive discussion, there is something that’s going to be funded, and there’ll be a public announcement thereafter. So we’ll have further updates on that in the special meeting.”

(On Thursday night, the Sun emailed the mayor, cc’ing all his village board colleagues, asking for specific instances of inaccurate reporting about the project. The mayor did not respond.)

‘Waiting for the paperwork’

Trustee Mary Bess Phillips, visibly frustrated, countered that work required to obtain the grant money has to be completed first.

“I do hope at some point we start to complete the paperwork for both of those issues that were mentioned in the newspaper. A lot of the information in there, mayor … does need to move forward. The $3 million — I checked with [federal officials] yesterday. I have an email from them that they’re just waiting for the paperwork to come from the village.” She said it’s the same situation with the state grant money for the ice rink.  

Referring to the stalled emergency bulkhead work, Phillips told her colleagues, “I have brought this before the board many times. I have written — back in March of ’25 I wrote fellow trustees stating that ‘we needed to do something.’ Yes, we are trustees, but we’re not the village administration, nor are we the village administrator, nor are we management. We can only vote, and we can only keep pressuring things to get done.

“So I am asking you, at this point, please assign one of us to help the staff get these applications and stuff done, which do require engineering, do require budgets, do require the information that you just mentioned. But it’s been two years, if not three years. The bulkhead for Mitchell Park was awarded before you started being mayor, before you were elected mayor.”

The mayor said that claim was not true.

“Yes, it is … because it was done under [former village administrator] Paul Pallas. It was done under the lobbyist at the time. So at this point, I’m asking you to please — no, maybe I should use the word demand — please, let’s get this stuff done so the rumors just stop.”

RELATED: After a year of shifting timelines, Greenport’s Mitchell Park bulkhead remains unrepaired

Trustee Julia Robins added that the board had already voted last fall to move forward with emergency work — at a meeting the mayor did not attend — only to have that effort stalled.

“Which you then … denied. You didn’t want to move ahead with it.”

Deputy Mayor Patrick Brennan said he has heard concerns from both the museum and Peconic Star Fleet about how construction could affect operations at the east dock.

When Stuessi said he would follow up directly, trustee Lily Dougherty-Johnson emphasized the broader issue.

“But again, for communication and transparency, it would be good for all of us to know the timeline, so we can tell the public, who is asking.”

“Yup,” the mayor replied.

Toward the end of the three hour and 39 minute meeting, the board addressed widespread complaints about poor video and audio quality of Village Board meeting videos, with trustees suggesting a fix could cost roughly $30,000.

To hear that discussion, view the video below.