Smithtown to pay $600G to end dumping suit
![Smithtown Town Hall is shown on Dec. 8, 2015.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.newsday.com%2Fimage-service%2Fversion%2Fc%3AOTRlMmFhMTAtMmE3YS00%3AMTAtMmE3YS00ZTQ0YzY2%2Ftosmit0511_web.jpg%3Ff%3DLandscape%2B16%253A9%26w%3D770%26q%3D1&w=1920&q=80)
Smithtown Town Hall is shown on Dec. 8, 2015. Credit: Ed Betz
The Town of Smithtown will pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit by owners of a Kings Park property who accused town workers of improperly dumping yard waste there.
According to the suit, filed on behalf of Neal P. Izzo and Robert J. Izzo, town workers deposited “vast volumes” of bagged leaves and brush at 294 Old Northport Rd., covering the material with sand.
The dumping was believed to have taken place before 2002. The Izzo family has owned the property since 1953.
The suit asked for $15 million. “Based on the circumstances, the settlement was in the interest of the town and its taxpayers,” Town Attorney Matt Jakubowski said. Town Supervisor Patrick Vecchio signed the agreement May 30.
Other members of the Izzo family brought a similar suit in the 1990s, charging that the town had buried 50,000 cubic yards of bagged leaves in the 1970s on land they owned near the town Highway Department facilities.
The leaves were discovered in 1992 when one of the brothers was mining the property for sand. The town settled that case for $1.2 million, Jakubowski said.
A spokeswoman for Rivkin Radler, the firm representing the Izzos in the recent case, declined to comment, saying the firm had not yet received the signed settlement agreement.
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