\nUpdated: March 29, 2012 11:22 PM
\nBy PATRICK WHITTLE \u00a0patrick.whittle@newsday.com<\/a><\/p>\n
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<\/div>\nThe plan was designed to steer new development away from the 10-mile river. But many residents bashed the plan as a giveaway to developers, and it became clear that the plan did not have the support of the town board.<\/p>\n
“All I was trying to do was save a river,” Lesko said during a town meeting Thursday night in Farmingville<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lesko’s decision to withdraw was met with a round of applause from the crowd of about 200. The decision came after a 2 1\/2-hour public comment period in which many residents chided the plan.<\/p>\n “Throw it away and walk away from the table,” said Peter Oleschuk of Rocky Point<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other residents were disappointed.<\/p>\n “Protect our waterway so it doesn’t become like the Forge,” said Shineye Wright of Mastic Beach<\/a>, referencing a polluted river elsewhere in town.<\/p>\n Council members Steve Fiore-Rosenfeld, Daniel Panico and Connie Kepert, who opposed Lesko’s plan, proposed an alternative measure that promised “significant public input” before the creation of revised plan.<\/p>\n The town board had not voted on the measure by press time.<\/p>\n “This plan is failing because it was forged behind closed doors,” Kepert said, referring to the original plan.<\/p>\n