Brookhaven Town's records storage center undergoing $5.7 million expansion as town aims to consolidate gov't services

Brookhaven Town's records storage center in Bellport is undergoing a $5.7 million expansion as the town offers its data collection services to more villages, school districts and other local governments, town officials said Wednesday.

The expansion is perhaps the most visible aspect of Brookhaven's drive to cut local taxes by reducing duplication of government services, town officials said. The program got a boost in 2018 when it won a $20 million state grant to encourage consolidation of services such as tax collection, cybersecurity and equipment purchases.

The grant enabled the town to eliminate obsolete lighting and water districts, and offer services such as road salt storage to the town's eight villages and numerous school, fire and library districts. Brookhaven stores records such as personnel files, meeting minutes and building records for the villages of Port Jefferson, Patchogue and Lake Grove, and the Mastic Moriches Shirley Community Library, among others.

"Space becomes a big problem" for smaller governments, Brookhaven Town Clerk Kevin LaValle said during a news conference Wednesday at the storage center. He added that the town plans a drive to recruit more governments to use the town facility, in an industrial park off Sawgrass Drive.

"It will save them money," LaValle said. "That's the key."

Brookhaven plans to expand storage space by 41.7% at the Bellport facility by building a second story within the 19,584-square-foot warehouse. The town had used $2.9 million from the state grant to purchase the depot, which it had previously rented, LaValle said.

An additional $651,000 in improvements to heating, cooling, plumbing and fire suppression will be funded by money from the Federal American Rescue Plan, town officials said. The remaining $2.13 million will be covered by an additional grant, they said.

The records center will remain open during construction, which is expected to take eight months, LaValle said.

Thousands of records — some dating to the early 1800s — are stored at the center in library-like rows of shelves lined with cardboard boxes. Among them are hard copies of birth and death records, and town historical archives, LaValle said. The town scans many records for storage on a cloud-based system, he said.

Brookhaven Supervisor Edward P. Romaine said records storage is a vital, if easily overlooked, responsibility of local government.

"If you don't know what happened before, you don't have a clear vision," he said. "The records are as important as some of our historic buildings ... so we have some understanding of how we got to today."   

Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri said the South Shore village has been using Brookhaven storage facilities for years after running out of room at Village Hall. Besides saving space, the town's digital record storage system makes it easier to find things, he said.

“We have limited space for storage of records," Pontieri said in an interview. "We have a basement. ... If you have records that you have to have a hard copy of, they [Brookhaven] have the space to do it.”

By Carl MacGowan

carl.macgowan@newsday.comCarlMacGowan

Carl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.