Riverhead fires parks commissioner over misrepresented audit review

Riverhead Town fired Parks Commissioner Ray Coyne on June 23 after he admitted he misrepresented how an audit review had been handled. Coyne had led the town’s parks and recreation department since 2005, and the board moved after a disciplinary proceeding that ended with a hearing officer’s recommendation for removal.

The Town Board acted at a special meeting noticed solely to adopt the hearing officer’s findings and recommendations. Town officials had appointed Robert Draffin as hearing officer on Feb. 18, then held hearings on March 18 and April 21 before voting 4-0 to terminate Coyne, with Councilman Bob Kern abstaining. The meeting lasted about 11 minutes. Supervisor Jerry Halpin said the case involved “professional misconduct.”

At the center of the case was Coyne’s admission that he had fabricated an “independent” accounting report and lied about who prepared it. That raised the kind of trust question that can cut deeper than the paperwork itself in a small town like Riverhead, where the parks department handles public amenities, recreation programs, maintenance and other day-to-day services residents see and use.

The town’s own Recreation Advisory Committee is supposed to oversee park and recreation funds, and the town lists Coyne as superintendent and Kern as the Town Board liaison. That overlap makes the firing more than a personnel move: it places the department’s money trail, oversight structure and internal controls in sharper focus just as officials are being asked whether public business was independently reviewed as represented.

There was some defense of Coyne at the meeting. Marylin Banks-Winter, a longtime Riverhead resident and the only public commenter, urged the board to keep him employed and said his years of service should be weighed in the decision. But the board’s vote held, and the town drew a hard line around a false statement tied to an audit process.

Riverhead’s Financial Reports page shows the town routinely posts annual audited basic financial statements and budget documents, including 2024 and 2025 materials. That public paper trail now sits alongside a firing that began with a misrepresented review and ended with the town removing one of its longest-serving department heads.