Mayor Stuessi hit with criticism from fellow Greenport officials

Last week, long-simmering tensions over Greenport Mayor Kevin Stuessi’s management of the village spilled out into the open when the heads of the village Zoning Board of Appeals and Planning Board made pointedly critical public statements about the state of village government under the first-time mayor’s leadership.

At the Village Board’s regular monthly meeting last Thursday night, Planning Board chair Tricia Hammes asserted that Greenport “does not have a functioning building department” and that “it is apparent that the village is struggling with managing day-to-day operations — particularly in respect to matters relating to the building department and code enforcement.”

ZBA chair John Saladino described a “village in turmoil” and compared current code enforcement to the lawless Wild West.

“Greenport right now is Tombstone, Arizona, 1800,” he said. “There is no enforcement. There’s nobody to take care of business.”

Ms. Hammes, who stressed she was speaking for herself, not the Planning Board, said that since the spring of 2023, when Mr. Stuessi took office, the building department’s monthly reports have “become increasingly incomplete and, more recently, have disappeared altogether from the agenda.”

She said that contractors, architects and residents can’t get records requests or building permits processed and that the village’s responses to their queries are “often incomplete and inaccurate.”

Mr. Saladino said he has given up on trying to get answers from Village Hall.

In the past, he said, “every week I would ask these questions and get an answer that ‘We’re trying to do something.’ But now it’s become untenable. You have to do something. You can’t say, ‘Well, we’re looking into it.’ You can’t say, ‘Well, we’re talking to some people.’ ”

Mr. Saladino also objected to what he described as the mayor “overseeing” the building department.

“First of all, it’s improper,” he said, “and second of all, it makes me uncomfortable to have to speak to a resident about why their application took a year to get in front of the Zoning Board.”

In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Stuessi described Ms. Hammes and Mr. Saladino as “two individuals who I respect greatly and give great service to the village of Greenport.”

“I think what is important to know is that we are dealing with a backlog, and we are working through that, and there are additional things that are being done in order to help accelerate getting through that backlog,” the mayor continued. “I’m not happy with the situation, but it’s one of the challenges of running a very small municipality when you don’t have layers upon layers of staff.”

Mr. Stuessi and other officials said that current building department inspector, Alex Bolanos, has been on indefinite medical leave for about two months. Mr. Bolanos did not return a call requesting comment.

The mayor said the village is not currently considering hiring a second full-time building inspector, but has brought in a part-time inspector and is in the midst of “finalizing bringing an outside consultant who is going to assist with plan review, so the building inspector is able to focus on inspections.”

Still, Mr. Stuessi acknowledged, “it’s clear that we need to add additional resources, even beyond the current full-time building inspector who’s out on medical leave. We need at least a couple of full-time individuals in the department. So we’ve been canvassing through civil service, and are going to be placing a public ad here very shortly.”

But he said that the village doesn’t intend to hire a second full-time inspector.

“We have not made the decision to hire an additional full-time inspector,” Mr. Stuessi said. “Our building inspector is still employed full-time. He’s out dealing with medical issues. We have reached out for part-time help, which is what we brought on, and we’re looking for additional help.”

He said the date of Mr. Bolanos’ return remains “undetermined.”

“We are working through the backlog and scheduling inspections and reviewing any issues for violations that are submitted to us on a weekly basis now,” the mayor said.

As for a new village administrator — a role that has been vacant since veteran village administrator Paul Pallas retired in February — Mr. Stuessi said “the intention is not to replace that role because the administrator — historically, in most places — is more of a clerical role.”

He said that he has talked to Village Board members about “bringing somebody on that is very much focused on infrastructure and planning.”

‘Stretched too thin’

In interviews over the past week with more than a dozen individuals who work or interact directly with Mr. Stuessi — including current and former village officials and committee members, real estate agents, small business owners, architects, developers and builders — a clear consensus emerged: Nearly everyone interviewed believes the mayor is micromanaging Greenport’s day-to-day operations to the detriment of the village.

Local real estate agents who regularly file Freedom of Information requests about village properties said in interviews this week that routine public records requests are being redirected to the mayor.

Architect Frank Uellendahl said he has stopped accepting architectural work in the village.

“I cannot say anything bad about Kevin,” Mr. Uellendahl said. “My concern as an architect — and I told Kevin this multiple times — ‘I’m not going to take any architectural work on at this time, until we have a building inspector.’

“I cannot tell any of my clients what to expect, as far as when we can get a permit, when they can start construction, so they can plan, he continued. “I’m still working on two projects in the village, but going forward, I’ll just wait and see what’s happening at the building department.”

Mr. Uellendahl said that Mr. Stuessi is “stretched too thin across too many things.”

Builder and former village trustee David Murray urged the mayor to take action on staffing the building department.

“I really have a problem with the whole building department in general — that Kevin hasn’t tried to get help,” he said. “He hasn’t put the job applications out. He hasn’t done anything.”

Mr. Murray suggested that the village department be dissolved and its duties turned over to Southold Town.

“We just don’t have the resources,” Mr. Murray said. “There’s too much in the building department than one or two people can really handle these days.”

He said he waited nearly a year for a “simple permit with no variances.”

“There are roughly 1,000 parcels in Greenport and roughly 22,000 in the Town of Southold,” Mr. Murray said. “And even when they are under the gun, [Southold’s building department] can turn [a permit application] around in six weeks, whereas in the village, they can’t.”

Former Greenport mayor David Nyce said in an interview that he had warned Mr. Stuessi, with whom he is friendly, that taking on the roles of both mayor and village administrator is too much.

“It was made very clear to him by countless people — me being one of them, but countless people — that one person cannot do that job,” Mr. Nyce said. “I said to him, from experience: ‘To do both of those jobs right is absolutely impossible.’ ”

‘Understaffed, under-resourced, under-managed’ 

In interviews this week, Village Board members were sympathetic to both Mr. Stuessi’s critics and the mayor himself.

Trustee Julia Robins said that board members have “brought this up to the mayor multiple times, that he needs to hire a village administrator or an administrative assistant, to deal with the many pending projects that need to move forward. And top of my list right now is the inaction by the building department to process permits, COs and everything like that.

“I think he has good intentions,” she added, “but it’s just way too much for one person. You can’t do everything.”

Trustee Patrick Brennan was diplomatic, saying, “Having an effective and really productive village staff is really important to the village and particularly in these roles of upper management.”

He cited the village treasurer’s office and the village clerk’s office as examples.

“They’re well-populated with strong individuals, and I think that’s progress,” Mr, Brennan said. “I’d say the building department also has good people, but, in my view, they’re understaffed and they’re under-resourced and maybe under-managed.”

But he also defended Mr. Stuessi’s right to act as both mayor and administrator.

“This role is at the discretion of the mayor. So as far as this idea that it’s illegal — I’m not a lawyer,” Mr. Brennan said. “But my understanding, after having reviewed the laws, is that it’s within the mayor’s discretion. If he wants to manage those roles himself, he could. He’s not required to fill out those roles, although I think that would be a good idea.

“If he doesn’t want to do that,” he continued, “I think that leaves the trustees in a position of needing to decide if they want to force this issue by creating a local law to require it, to require a village administrator and to define specifically what the administrator or manager would do.”

Trustee Lily Dougherty-Johnson said attracting good candidates for village jobs has been a perennial problem in Greenport.

“Because a lot of these jobs are civil service jobs, the pay is what it is,” she said. “We don’t have a choice over that. We can’t just pay more. Like many businesses out here, we struggle to find staff.”

Deputy mayor Mary Bess Phillips also defended the mayor, but called on him to hire more staff.

“Mayor Stuessi has taken on the role of being very visible and available, as the village community expected with their votes,” Ms. Phillips said. “Our village community members are observing the actions of the mayor and us as a board in managing our remarkably busy one square mile: utilities, roads, parks and recreation, buildings, that make up our village government — including two major projects that need constant oversight and management decisions: the Mitchell Park bulkhead and the North Ferry restaging.

However, Ms. Phillips concluded, “It is now time for Mayor Stuessi to hire staffing, whatever the title, to keep us the Village of Greenport that we know and love.”