Unable to Afford Groceries, Monroe Residents Asked to Pay For Town Board Raise
Unable to Afford Groceries, Monroe Residents Asked to Pay For Town Board Raise
The Town of Monroe Supervisor, Tony Cardone, tried to pull a fast one on residents with a little publicized hearing on raising the pay for each Town Board representative. But do they deserve it?
For most of my life — 80% of which has been spent right here in Monroe — I’ve watched bullies get away with all sorts of shady stuff. Most of those bullies included our public officials and others working in the public eye.
Rarely, if ever, were they confronted with the consequences of their actions.
Now, things are changing, and that’s thanks to all of you reading this.
Let me provide you with a quick example before we get to today’s short post.
At the top of this post is audio of a confrontation between a Town of Woodbury employee and Woodbury Public Library President, Cathy Schmidt.
We spent a lot of time documenting the numerous reasons why Mrs. Schmidt should resign here. Despite her public meltdown over the last week on Facebook, finally, Mrs. Schmidt is facing the consequences for her actions against Mrs. Spear.
I’m sharing this audio again with you here to reiterate that consequences are coming for all of the local bullies of Southern Orange County, and I want you to join me in holding them accountable.
In the words of Captain America (from Amazing Spider-Man #537 by J. Michael Straczynski, Ron Garney and Scott Hanna)
“Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mob say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world “No. You move.”
I want this to be a reminder to everyone that things CAN change if you speak up. Not just across Southern Orange County, but all across America.
It doesn’t matter if it’s Joel Stern in South Blooming Grove.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the Woodbury Town Board and their flunkies like Mrs. Schmidt.
It doesn’t matter if it’s Monroe Town Supervisor Tony Cardone.
You plant yourself like a tree, and you tell them all: No. You move.
Now, that brings us to the Town of Monroe and Cardone’s attempt to sneak through a public hearing about raising the salary of the Town Board members:
The above was put on the Town’s website on Thursday, so the public only had one business day of notice.
Now I don’t know about you, but given everything we’ve documented on The Monroe Gazette, do you think these bullies (Cardone, Houle, and Scancarello) deserve a raise?
I don’t. So, I sent the following letter to Mrs. Bitzer, the Town Clerk, and I encourage you to write your own and send them in to valerie@monroeny.org
To The Town Board Majority,
I understand there is a "special" meeting this evening, one that was unannounced to the public until the last minute, and one that was apparently scheduled on a whim with the Supervisor asking his fellow board members via email, "How much should we raise our salaries."
Seriously? During a time when Monroe residents cannot afford to buy groceries, and our elderly residents have to choose between paying for life-saving drugs and their rent?
You want to increase your salary?
Bravo Supervisor Cardone. That's a hell of a way to lose re-election for Supervisor next Fall. I hope whoever your opponent is plasters this salary increase on every possible flyer sent to Monroe residents.
That said, I do have questions:
Is this happening because Mrs. Houle is about to lose yet another election and wants to be compensated for her loss?
Mrs. Houle, have you tried not fear-mongering about black and brown people in your YouTube commercials and instead addressing Orange County's inability to police the weights and measurement tools used by our local grocery stores to set those high prices?
Why should we pay to increase your salary when you and the rest of this board have not acted on the Comptroller's report to help lower prices at the grocery store for Town residents?
Why should Monroe residents pay for your repeated failure to defeat an easily beatable Democratic opponent in a mostly Red district? Skoufis is awful.
The fact that he is still our State Senator rests entirely on your inability to actually work on behalf of the people that elected you in the Town of Monroe, to say nothing of your half-term with the Village and inability today to serve as the Village liaison.
In Mayor Dwyer's own words, "I haven't seen her once."
While true that all of our public servants are underpaid, you also have to justify the pay increase. And during a time when people are struggling, you help justify that by holding off on any such increase until the people who pay your salaries are no longer struggling.
Now is not the time to increase your pay.
Especially considering this brief, and incomplete, list of reasons that demonstrate the Majority of this Town Board has not earned the right to increase their pay.
If I had the time, this list would be much longer:
-Three years of inaction by Supervisor Cardone to address the "rotten egg smell" that impacts the health and safety of all Monroe residents. I have three years of emails showing the Supervisor passing the buck. This is stunning given the Supervisor's eagerness to take legal action against Kiryas Joel over false claims, made by the Supervisor, of "contamination" of a Village well.
I guess we only take legal action against municipalities that endanger the health of all Monroe residents when it's politically convenient to do so.
-Mrs. Houle refusing to actually work as the liaison for the Village of Monroe and reporting a severe oil spill that could have impacted their drinking water in January of this year.
-The lack of records concerning the public hearing and vote of the sale of the Lake Street building to Somni. Publicly available documents only show that you agree to LEASE the building, not sell it. This Town Board owes the public a full accounting of the sale of this building, when it was approved, by whom, and at what price.
-The lack of responsiveness to FOIL requests including sexual harassment allegations against highway superintendent, Pat Patterson, and Mr. Cardone and Mrs. Houle's subsequent retaliation against William Brown Jr. which opened the Town to a potential PERB complaint.
-Accusations of the Town Supervisor routinely referring to employees at the highway department as "Spics."
-The Supervisor's lack of recusal concerning Lake Sapphire and the amount of Lake water he owns there. Not to mention the lack of compliance with requests for information concerning Lake Sapphire and Mr. Cardone's familial relations with members of that Home Owner Association. (Where's the engineering report for the dam, Tony?)
-The threats of legal action against Kiryas Joel that — in Mr. Cardone's own words – triggered because of their refusal to support Mrs. Houle's political campaign
- The consistent false statements made at the dais which now require real time fact checking by Councilwoman Bingham and Richardson, all while the Supervisor watches TV clips on his phone.
- The consistent bullying of the two minority party councilwomen.
- The anti-woman misogyny demonstrated by Councilman Scancarello's assault on Councilwoman Richardson
-The fiscal mismanagement that has resulted in millions of dollars Town residents now need to pay for ...
-The inability to maintain good relations with both Villages, resulting in current threats of legal action by both.
I could go on.
But if you think anyone on this board deserves an increase in salary, you're wrong.
What's needed instead are some resignations.
P.S. if you think we're done talking about the Lake Sapphire situation, Mr. Cardone, you've got another thing coming.
-B.J. Mendelson
Concerned Town of Monroe resident.
Now it’s your turn, send in a public comment concerning the proposed salary increase today to: valerie@monroeny.org
It’s time to chase out all of the bullies.
Update 9/24/24:
You can watch the video here of the “Special” meeting. In the first five minutes, the Town Board did the right thing and declined to raise the salary for the Supervisor and Town Board.
But …
Highway Superintendent Pat Patterson, who was credibly accused of sexual harassment, which the Town has continued to assist in covering up the results of that investigation, did receive a raise.
So to, did Valerie Bitzer, Town Clerk, who cited the number of FOIL requests as part of the reason to increase her salary.
Here’s the thing though: If the Town of Monroe properly complied with requests for information by its residents, there would be little to no increase in the FOIL requests. So this was a bogus claim on the part of the Clerk.
Bottom line?
It was nice to see the Town Board, and our Supervisor, not get a pay increase during a time when people are struggling; however, two elected officials who have been the subject of investigations and inquiries concerning poor behavior and improperly following NYS FOIL laws DID get a raise.
In the case of Superintendent Patterson, this raise came at the urging of Supervisor Cardone, showing yet again that he places his cronies above the people that he was elected to represent.
Mr. Patterson should not continue to serve the public until the results are made public of the sexual harassment allegations, if he should be allowed to continue to serve the public at all.