Pictured Above: The two alleged suspects of an on going arson investigation in the Village of South Blooming Grove.

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So, just a reminder, you can send tips to The Monroe Gazette anonymously. There are two ways to do this: You can download the Signal app here, and then send me a message on Signal to BJMendelson.32.

The other way is, without filling out the return address, sending us mail or documents to The Monroe Gazette, PO BOX 5, 996 Route 17 Stop 2, Arden, NY, 10910.

I mention this because an intrepid reader of The Monroe Gazette sent us some information concerning an alleged arson investigation in the Village of South Blooming Grove.

Given the increasing frequency of “mysterious fires” in the Village beginning in 2021 when the white-collar crime spree began, these fires are something we try to document because Orange County seems never to get around to solving them.

And since Monroe’s Village Mayor, Alex Melchiorre, continues to oversee the Blooming Grove Police Department, for now, he’s going to have some say on what charges, if any, get filed.

So, I am reporting on this story to ensure that Mr. Melchiorre doesn’t do another favor for Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein and make this investigation disappear too.

When you get to our upcoming story on what’s happening in the Village of Monroe building department, you’re going to know Mr. Melchiorre will likely try to avoid any involvement in investigating the mysterious fires at 12 Delano Grove at 7:27 p.m. on July 20, 2026.

The building is owned by Samuel Kohn after purchasing it from Dariusz Domalewski for $210,000 in 2021 according to Orange County’s real property database. Mr. Kohn also owns 10 Delano Grove and 4 Delano Grove, as well as 20 Crawford Street in the City of Port Jervis.

Given how close Mr. Kohn’s properties are to each other, we pulled the South Blooming Grove ones he owns up on Google Maps to show you.

A day before, on July 19, 2026, at 3:07 p.m., a mysterious fire broke out over at 212 Prospect Road, also in the Village of South Blooming Grove. Shlome Itzkowitz purchased this property two months after Mr. Kohn purchased his. This is during Year 1 of what became a hostile takeover by a large real estate developer, of a small village government in Upstate New York.

Despite our state Attorney General’s promises to uphold the integrity of our electoral process—and possessing knowledge of the situation in South Blooming Grove because she was sued over her inaction—she’s refused to respond.

Mr. Itzkowitz owns a number of properties, including 922 Craigville Road in the Town of Blooming Grove, 209 Oxford Road, and 26 Bull Mine Road. Both also in the Town. 17 Blueberry Lane in Woodbury is also owned by Shlome Itzkowitz. In Warwick, he owns 171 Darin Road there.

So far, of the two men alleged to be at the center of an arson investigation by Orange County, Itzkowitz is the least interesting.

He doesn’t have much of a footprint.

Samuel Kohn, however, is definitely worthy of some additional coverage.

That’s because he’s currently in Orange County Court in Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. vs. Kohn, Samuel et all (Case Index #EF007431-2024).

In this case, Mr. Kohn is alleged to owe the plaintiff about $200,722.68.

In Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. vs. Kohn, Samuel et al (Case Index #EF011751-2025).

In this case, Mr. Kohn is alleged by the plaintiff to owe $234,893.83.

This means that, at the time of the fire on July 20 at 12 Delano Grove, Mr. Kohn owed $469,787.66.

Does that mean anything? I don’t know. I’m not a cop. What I am is an investigative reporter who is looking at what the public records can tell us about the alleged suspects.

What I want you to know though, is that if I can figure this stuff out, then so can District Attorney David M. Hoovler.

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Last week, during the July 21 Village of Monroe Board meeting, Village Trustee John Karl brought up the hazardous hydrogen sulfide smell in the Village, a problem that was formerly isolated to the children’s playground in Crane Park. (Press play to see that discussion in the video below.)

Since nobody took the smell seriously until The Monroe Gazette started writing about it in October 2024, it has now spread throughout the Village.

We have extensively covered the poo gas issue, so we’re not going to recap the whole saga here.

(Our archives are free thanks to the generosity of paid subscribers like you.)

But I will point out that former Village of Monroe Mayor Joseph Mancuso repeated a common—and false—Monroe Town Republican line about the hydrogen sulfide smell during the exchange seen in the video above.

Mancuso was part of the new Board that came in with Melchiorrie because Lipa Deutsch and Avrohm Flohr wanted a more cooperative Village Building Department, which, it is clear, they got according to people we spoke to with direct knowledge on the matter.

Mancuso stated that the smell had been there forever. This is a Trumpian lie in the sense that, at its core, there’s some truth there, but it’s also wildly deceptive.

We’ll also take a moment to remind readers that former Monroe Town Board member Dorey Houle and former Town Supervisor Tony Cardone, both members of the Town of Monroe Republican Committee, had known about the hydrogen sulfide issue for at least five years.

Despite this, and despite being told of the dangerous levels of that gas at the children’s playground, they proceeded to do exactly what you think those two did: Absolutely nothing.

Worse, they said nothing to the public. So, think about that next time you see those two crying on Facebook, or at a Town meeting, about how terrible the new administration is that replaced them.

The truth is this: Since 1991 or so, there’s been an occasional whiff of hydrogen sulfide in and around Airplane Park and over by the former Monroe Taxi location, which is also the heavily trafficked Millpond Shortline bus stop.

What’s different—and has been different since Cardone and Houle were made aware of the issue in 2021, years after Mancuso was mayor of the village—is that the gas reached dangerous levels in 2021 and remained high for years after.

So it’s not a tomato, tomahto situation as Mancuso and others, like Orange County Legislator Peter Tuohy, want you to believe.

In 1991, the poo gas existed, but it was an annoyance that occurred in one, maybe two spots.

In 2021, it’s a near-daily recurrence throughout the entire village, and at some of those times, the exposure level was potentially dangerous.

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Scandal-plagued Blooming Grove Police Chief, Alex Melchiorre, already has a sketchy track record when it comes to his relationship with South Blooming Grove’s unelected co-mayors, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein.

Unfortunately, for Monroe residents, Alex Melchiorre is also their Village Mayor.

So when Melchiorre says to John Karl in the video above that he wants to meet with Isaac Ekstein and Joel Stern—the two men engaged in an ongoing white-collar crime spree that New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s office is well aware of, but won’t act on—that was going to be the original post I was going to share with you on Monday.

But Then…

Town of Monroe Supervisor Maureen Richardson put out an announcement that the hydrogen sulfide problem would soon be settled. So I had to throw out my original post.

There are several issues with this announcement.

For one, Cardone and Houle actively lied and covered up the situation. They didn't try anything to resolve the hydrogen sulfide on their own. We know because we put in a FOIL request for everything we could concerning the sewage situation and have all the emails, including one where Cardone complained about having to go to a meeting on the issue.

So, Supervisor Richardson is being too generous by saying they tried to negotiate anything other than under-the-table bribes for Mr. Cardone—something he is alleged to have taken from Lipa Deutsch, Mr. Melchiorre's backer, to move the Monroe Commons project forward. (Mr. Cardone has denied ever taking any bribes.)

The other thing is, South Blooming Grove budgeted for and set aside a few hundred thousand or so for the ANUE Water Technologies System. They claimed, at the time, that they didn't purchase the system because, during a test, their sewer infrastructure had a major operational problem. (The extent of the problem is unknown, since The Monroe Gazette received redacted emails from the Village of South Blooming Grove on the subject.)

So nobody knows where the money went for the ANUE system. (I keep seeing people online say they got a grant for the ANUE system, but I haven't been able to verify that. They got grants for water, but none that I’ve seen SPECIFICALLY for the hardware. What I do have are all of SBG's budgets going back to 2021, and you can track the missing money that way.)

The final thing is, I don’t know who’s advising the Supervisor, or if she’s doing it herself, but the time for this announcement would have been at the same time the Dial a Bus arrangement was made with South Blooming Grove.

This way Monroe residents would have made the connection—whether or not they’re happy about it is a different matter—that the Dial a Bus services were provided to South Blooming Grove in exchange for their assistance in resolving the hydrogen sulfide issue. A problem that the New York State DEC—a couple of letters aside—Orange County Department of Health and Orange County Environmental Services, and the Attorney General’s office, refused to intervene with and solve for Monroe residents.

She didn’t do that. So people were, rightfully, pissed at the sudden arrangement with SBG. There’s an argument to be made that all decisions by Stern and Ekstein are void because they’re not duly elected or duly appointed since the entire board is essentially squatting and holding the Village hostage.

However, the only way to resolve that is a federal lawsuit, which is what The Monroe Gazette will begin working on as soon as our two FOIL requests about those phantom elections are settled. The little FOIL case is moving along. The big FOIL case, which involves access to emails in Joel Stern’s gmail account, is still waiting to get started.

We Have Questions

The following are our questions to Monroe Town Supervisor, Maureen Richardson, that we encourage you to ask her.

After that, we have the questions I sent to “Co-Mayors” of South Blooming Grove, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein.

We will bring you more coverage on this story as soon as we have more information to provide the public.

We asked Supervisor Richardson:

“We can factually demonstrate that Mr. Joel Stern and Issac Ekstein are compulsive liars. (See: Court testimony provided by both men in the Orange County lawsuit) What guarantees have been made to the Town of Monroe that Stern and Ekstein will keep their word in both purchasing this hardware and making sure it’s operational?

When asked by staffers of Congressman Ryan to resolve the illegal use of the helicopter at 58 Fort Worth Place— something Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein’s Planning Board never approved, and Mr. Stern and Ekstein’s Code Enforcement Officer, Al Fusco Jr., has never acted to correct—Stern’s response to the Congressman was that Mr. Dam “should be glad we didn’t further develop the property around his home.”

Mr. Javier Dam is a Monroe resident of nearly thirty years. The helicopter situation, despite being in Mr. Stern and Ekstein’s power to address, has not been.

If this sort of disregard is demonstrated to South Blooming Grove’s neighbors in Monroe, how can either man be trusted to keep their commitments to you and Town of Monroe residents like Mr. Dam?”

We asked “Co-Mayors” Stern and Ekstein:

“I have a series of emails between Ekstein, Stern, and Fusco, claiming that the pilot the ANUE Water Technologies hardware caused in 2022 a number of issues when activated due to the state of South Blooming Grove’s sewer infrastructure. Have those issues been addressed?

Has Orange County’s Department of Health and Environmental Facilities and Services signed off on these issues being resolved?

If not, what assurances have been given to the Town of Monroe that the sewer issues will be remedied —and by WHEN— in exchange for the generous Dial a Bus service South Blooming Grove is now receiving?

Will continued cooperation with the Town of Monroe on this issue be contingent on providing the Dial a Ride Service? Or do you both plan to hold the Town hostage by turning the system off whenever you feel like it?

Has this arrangement been discussed and shared with Orange County Sewer District 1’s Advisory Committee, which has been working to remedy the hydrogen sulfide smell in the Village of Monroe? They had no knowledge of this announcement at their meeting last week. (Below)

Has this arrangement been shared with the Orange County Department of Health and Environmental Facilities Services? Is South Blooming Grove currently in compliance with the OC Department of Health concerning their water and sewage infrastructure, or has it begun to pay fines to Orange County after years of ignoring the County’s warnings concerning their water and sewage infrastructure?

Where did the $300,000+ budgeted and set aside for the ANUE Water Technologies Hardware go, since the machinery was clearly never purchased, and now the Village needs to purchase NEW hardware in order to meet is end of this deal with the Town of Monroe?”

Requests for comment were also sent to Bob Gray at Orange County Deputy Commissioner of Public works. We also requested comment from New York State Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, whose office will soon enter its third year of an audit of the Village of South Blooming Grove. The Comptrollers office would not provide a timeline for when the audit would be completed.

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That’s too bad because we had a question for the USDA about whether or not they murdered a bunch of geese this week and they got RIGHT back to us.

(The answer is no. They did not murder, at the request of Monroe Village Mayor Alex Melchiorrie, the geese at the Millpond. What’s happened to the geese though is a bit of a mystery. We’ll get to that one later.)

Yesterday, Orange County Legislator Genesis Ramos released the following statement, via Facebook, concerning ICE’s potential concentration camp. The building in its current state is pictured below thanks to a brave Monroe Gazette reader.

“Today, I introduced a resolution in the Rules Committee urging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE to immediately halt plans for a proposed immigration processing and/or detention facility in the Town of Newburgh. The resolution received unanimous bipartisan support and now heads to the full Legislature.”

[Reader Note: This starts at 22:16 in the video below]

“This is not the first time we’ve taken this stand. In February, the Orange County Legislature voted unanimously to vehemently oppose the proposed ICE detention facility in Chester. That proposal was ultimately abandoned. This opposition is rooted in a federal government that continues to undermine local communities by advancing major decisions without transparency, meaningful local input, or respect for any other level of government. My opposition is also rooted in the rogue, out-of-control conduct of ICE as an agency, and I am unequivocal about that.

Many have asked what Orange County can do to stop this. The reality is that our legal authority is limited. Under home rule and the Supremacy Clause, the County cannot block the federal government from contracting with a private property owner to operate a facility or enact a moratorium. But limited legal authority does not mean silence. It means using every tool we do have, including unanimous bipartisan action, public pressure, and a united county voice to demand that DHS abandon this proposal. The legal authority rests on the Town of Newburgh government.

Town of Newburgh Supervisor Gil Piaquadio is circulating a letter that has already garnered broad bipartisan support from elected officials across Orange County. That level of unity sends a clear message. This resolution goes to a full vote at our August 6th legislative session.”

But not everyone in the Town of Newburgh is thrilled with the move to stop ICE in Newburgh.

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That brings us to Paul Ruggiero, a Republican member of the Newburgh Town Board. Some of you may recall, Paul “won” re-election to the Town Board by one vote after a lot of controversy. (This election is currently subject to an investigation by The Monroe Gazette and we’ll have it more on it in the coming weeks.)

Councilman Ruggiero put out a statement of his own following the Newburgh Town Board meeting that we covered here.

Dear Fellow Town of Newburgh Residents,

There has been a great deal of discussion surrounding the resolution adopted at Monday night’s Town Board meeting regarding the proposed ICE facility. I want to take this opportunity to clarify my position.

First, the federal government has not contacted the Town regarding the placement or operation of any ICE facility. The resolution was not a statement against ICE or the dedicated men and women who serve in law enforcement.

I fully support ICE and all law enforcement agencies for the important work they do to protect our communities and uphold the law. My concern with the proposed facility is its potential impact on our Town Police Department. If large-scale protests were to occur, our department could be significantly strained in maintaining public safety. [Emphasis Added. Also, LOL.]

As I understand it, Governor Hochul has directed that the New York State Police not provide security or intervention at ICE facilities in New York, which could leave the responsibility for responding to demonstrations primarily to our local police department. That possibility was a significant factor in my decision to support the resolution.

[Reader note: This is a lie by Ruggiero, but just for fun, we did reach out to Governor Hochul’s office to respond to this claim.]

It’s also important to understand the broader context. A few years ago, county jails in New York were permitted to house individuals for federal immigration purposes. After that practice was discontinued by the state, it changed how these facilities could be utilized, contributing to discussions about alternative locations.

[Reader note: This is also a lie. The Monroe Gazette recently covered the RECENT conditions of ICE detainees at Orange County Jail. Ruggiero is referring to a change in the law that would end this practice as of this year.]

I also want to be clear with my supporters and all Town of Newburgh residents: I support ICE carrying out its lawful responsibilities, and I believe those responsibilities should always be carried out professionally, with respect and dignity of every individual.

While people may have different views on immigration policy, my responsibility as a Town Board member is to make decisions based on what is in the best interest of our community, including ensuring that our local police have the resources they need to keep our residents safe.

Thank you for taking the time to understand my position.

With much respect,

Councilman Paul Ruggiero

Here, for those who don’t know, is what it looks like when ICE carries out its “lawful responsibilities”

You notice how Ruggiero’s more concerned about protestors than the Concentration Camp in his backyard? That’s how you know he’s one of the Bad Guys.

One attendee at the Newburgh Town Board meeting told us, “He [Ruggiero] sat there Monday night while a steady stream of residents expressed heartfelt concern for this facility and he kept a smug expressionless look on his face because he never supported the opposition to the facility. He sat emotionless while councilmember Mary McLymore spoke out about racism and her struggles and how she won't stand for this in her town. He played with his pen and stared straight ahead.”

Whether or not Ruggiero’s statement was approved by the rest of the Town Board is unknown at this time. The Monroe Gazette has sent an email requesting comment from the Town.

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P.S. On Friday’s, I try to run the podcast. It takes forever to edit those transcripts though since I refuse to use AI. So the podcast will return next Friday as we talk about how to FOIA the federal government and agencies like ICE.

Now, I have to confess, it’s not clear which Grand Rebbe appeared. This is likely deliberate on the part of Daily Monroe and the rest of the websites in their news network.

This is because, as fellow goyim know, Grand Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum (Kiryas Joel, head of the Aaronite faction of the Satmar) is in a blood feud with his brother, Grand Rebbe Zalman Teitelbaum.

Zalman is head of the Satmar down in Boro Park, where the Daily Monroe has a sister website known as Boro Park 24.

It’s not good business to recognize the opposing Rebbe, especially when your news may require the blessing of Hanhalla (leadership or administration) prior to publication.

The Rebbes, because they’re brothers, also look a lot alike. (Aaron is older.) So I really can’t tell from these pictures which one it is. But one detail suggests who it may be.

Zalman’s flunky, Joel Stern, “runs” South Blooming Grove as the unelected “Village Executive.” So, while it remains a guess on our part, we’re assuming the man pictured is Zalman (center), with the belief that Stern is pictured at the front next to him.

(We tried a TinEye reverse image search to confirm the identity of the men in the photo with no such luck. From seeing him in person, the man at the front center does look like Stern.)

Update: A couple of readers confirm that is Zalman in the picture, but not Joel Stern next to him. According to them, it’s not Stern, but one of Zalman’s assistants. On the far left is Livy Schwartz, the developer of the Greens at Chester. We’ll talk about him in the future.

Which Grand Rebbe appeared doesn't matter too much beyond the fact that one of them did, and they visited a construction site that came to be known for a lot of safety issues that the Village of South Blooming Grove's Village Executive, Joel Stern, apparently couldn't be bothered to address.

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Pictured Above: Photos from DailyMonroe.com depict the current state of the Island Time Supermarket a year, and a bunch of OSHA violations later, in July 2026.

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We’ve talked before about Guilmar Montufar v. Keen Equities, so potential criminal negligence when it comes to construction sites in South Blooming Grove shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Neither should the increase in accidents occurring on South Blooming Grove’s side of 208 (once you’re past the Orange and Rockland building).

If you’re mad about the road conditions, the people to blame are Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein for fast-tracking the construction of a city on rural infrastructure because their boss (Grand Rebbe Zalman Leib Teitelbaum) wants to circle Kiryas Joel and cut off its ability to grow. It is nobody’s fault but their own.

That’s why all those accidents keep happening, and despite the human toll, Stern and Ekstein will continue to use this as “proof” that they need their Mangin Bypass through Gonzaga Park.

They’ve been beating that drum forever now. (We’ll circle back to that latest iteration involving Monroe Mayor Alex Melchiorrie on Monday.)

What also won’t come as a surprise is that the Village’s Code Enforcement Officer, Fusco Engineering & Land Surveying, remains nowhere to be found—despite the firm’s frequent claims to residents to the contrary.

For years, the Village of South Blooming Grove has refused to turn over any emails sent by Fusco and his team, claiming they did not exist.

We can now, thanks to that big Department of Health data dump, demonstrate the existence of those emails.

And there are LOTS of these emails from Team Fusco that demonstrate they are actively engaging on behalf of the Village in them.

So we submitted a new FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request to the Village of South Blooming Grove the other day. Want to see it?

Let’s Talk OSHA

If you're not familiar, OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They cited Total Property Care Inc., the crew building the Island Time Supermarket, five times just weeks before whichever Grand Rebbe decided to come and "bless" the project. Of the violations, two are labeled as Serious.

(By the way: If you’re wondering if Total Concrete Inc. is related to Total Property Care, there’s no conclusive proof it’s the same but there’s definitely overlap with the usual suspects, including local slum lord, Moche Halpern.)

The mailing address for Total Property Care Inc. given to OSHA is 14 Fort Worth Place, which is owned by Lazer Weiss.

Where have we heard that name before on The Monroe Gazette?

Here’s where else you saw it:

Dorey “I Spent Almost $500,000 On Racist TV Ads” Houle took $3,300 from Lazer Weiss during her previous campaign for State Senate.

This $3,300 from Lazer Weiss is the single largest campaign contribution Dorey Houle received from an individual in 2024. It is also the only political campaign contribution made by Mr. Weiss — assuming he’s not the same Lazer Weiss living in Brooklyn. Since names are commonly recycled in the Haredi community, you can’t assume they are one and the same. (However … I am currently looking into some court documents that may suggest otherwise. I’ll let you know.)

So, color me puzzled every time Dorey Houle and her friends, the Monroe Town Republicans, are constantly ranting about “The Hassidim.”

Maybe Dorey Houle can explain to us why Lazer Weiss gave her so much money the next time she shows up at a Monroe Town Board meeting to talk about public accountability?

More importantly: Weiss is also the Second Assistant Chief of South Blooming Grove Fire Department 1. This is the fake, play time fire department Joel Stern set up as part of his wider scheme of putting as much state and federal money into his pockets as he can.

This is also the same fire company with the Island Time Supermarket advertisement on its fire truck. The one where Mr. Lazer Weiss, who is doing the construction work for Island Time Supermarket, is a Second Assistant Chief.

So here’s a fun question to ponder while we continue our investigation:

Who paid for the fire truck, and if it wasn’t Island Time Supermarket, why is Island Time Supermarket being advertised on a truck in a fire department where the Second Assistant Chief is assisting in the construction of the supermarket?

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As a reminder to readers: In New York State, there is no such thing as a “Village Executive.” Joel Stern has used the title repeatedly despite not being an actual elected official for the Village of South Blooming Grove, as you can see pictured above.

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Well, it only took two years … But we finally got our FOIL request answered from the Department of Health.

As you know, the Village of South Blooming Grove is ground zero for an ongoing white-collar crime spree with two men, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein, at the center of it.

Attorney General Letitia James has been aware of this crime spree going back to at least 2022.

The FBI and Orange County District Attorney have also been aware for about the same amount of time.

The Governor, Kathy Hocul, and her office knows as well—and has declined via FOIL to turn over her communications with both Stern and Ekstein’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove organization— and so too knows our state senator James G. Skoufis—who took $10,000 from Stern and $15,000 from Ekstein, not to mention tens of thousands more Skoufis took from their friends.

And we’ve discussed New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and his attempts to hide or otherwise obscure the existence of the audit of South Blooming Grove.

Despite this…

There are still a lot of questions to be answered.

Including newer ones that have popped up in the last year involving the “emergency services” that Stern and Ekstein have recently established in an attempt to get rid of the goyim’s emergency medical services.

(I wish I was kidding, but that’s what they keep asking the County and State for help with: How to displace the current emergency services groups while only advertising assistance to the Haredi population.)

One reoccurring question sent in to The Monroe Gazette is this: Why does Stern and Ekstein’s firetrucks have advertising on it for Island Time? A local grocery store. (See below.)

They (Stern and Ekstein) claim the Island Time owners donated the fire truck to the Village of South Blooming Grove, which, according to village records we’ve seen thus far, the taxpayers of South Blooming Grove may have paid for it.

So, once again, Stern and Ekstein are lying and probably still using the village’s money—including state grants and federal money—as their personal piggy bank.

Where’s the money from the Island Time supermarket advertising going?

Because if it’s not going to the Village of South Blooming Grove, that’s the kind of thing that you’d think would get a district attorney’s attention.

This question, by the way, is at the subject of a brand new Freedom of Information request that we just submitted to the village.

And before you ask, yes. It is legal in the State of New York, as far as we can tell, to place advertising on municipal property. This includes a fire truck.

Island Time isn’t just a grocery store. So there’s a little bit more to this story.

It’s a real estate development that, like almost everything else in South Blooming Grove, is ignoring environmental and other municipal rules and regulations to get built at “super fast speed.”

If you’re thinking what I’m thinking here—that Stern is rubber-stamping permits for developers, like Island Time, who fund his playtime fire department—you’re on the right track.

That brings us to the DOH document dump.

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The New York State Department of Health, after two years of waiting, finally released over 2,500 pages of documentation concerning South Blooming Grove that I need to read. I have made all those documents available here.

So far, I am underwhelmed with what I’m seeing, and I think someone (me, and them) botched this FOIL. Meaning we’re going to have to FOIL them again.

What I’m seeing is a hodgepodge of stuff about South Blooming Grove but not much about corrective action being taken on behalf of residents with no clean drinking water.

But … There’s some other stuff in here. Stuff related to Stern and Ekstein’s fake EMS and fire company for example. That’s why I wanted to remind you of some of the questions being asked to us by residents.

So, if you don’t mind, there won’t be a post on the 21st (tomorrow) and 22nd (Wednesday.)

I’m going to examine all the documents I just shared with you from the DOH, and then put in some follow-up FOILs and requests for comment.

I’ll then come back on Thursday with an update. On Friday, you’ll get part 2 of our interview series on FOIA (freedom of information act) best practices.

Sadly, I can’t do two things at once. This document dump requires some reading and investigating. so let me get back to you after I’ve done that.

See you Thursday.

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We’re teaching everyone how to use FOIA (the Freedom of Information Act.)

If you missed our first attempt to FOIA ICE and the General Services Administration for information concerning 800 Corporate Boulevard in the Town of Newburgh, start here.

This conversation picks up from that post.

The current deadline for GSA to get back to us, according to them, is 20 business days from July 13th, 2026. So August 7th, 2026 is when we will file up with them if we haven’t heard back.

Transcript

(Note: The following transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.)

BJ Mendelson, The Monroe Gazette: Lauren, would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself?

Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy with Freedom of the Press Foundation: Of course. My name is Lauren Harper, and I currently serve as the Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy with Freedom of the Press Foundation. Prior to that, I spent over a decade working for a nonprofit based in Washington, DC called the National Security Archive, helping journalists, researchers, and lots of other folks use FOIA to get important documents declassified.

BJ Mendelson: For for our younger members of the audience, could you tell us who Daniel Ellisberg was?

Lauren Harper: Absolutely. Daniel Ellsberg was the legendary whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers in the early nineteen seventies, and these papers proved that successive presidential administrations, both Democratic and Republican, had been lying to the public and to Congress about the odds of success …American success, in Vietnam.

BJ: It’s striking to me. I I had just read The Afghanistan Papers a few years ago and I was struck by history not necessarily repeating, but definitely rhyming there.

Lauren: Craig Whitlock’s book relied heavily on FOIA. I actually worked on the Afghanistan documentation project at the archive while he was was working on that and, absolutely, history repeats, rhymes, all that stuff.

And FOIA, you know, is it’s an imperfect tool, but it was really important in getting …especially the Special Inspector General on Afghanistan Reconstruction Reports out into the public for for that book.

BJ: For people who haven’t read it, I can’t recommend [the book] enough. Especially as a millennial, my entire adulthood was shaped by Afghanistan.

Lauren, let’s put aside for a second that the federal government is broken, right? And FOIA probably is not gonna work the way that it would in an ideal situation.

That said, what we’re trying to do at The Monroe Gazette is train people to use the chat models like like a Claude or ChatGPT to send in FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests.

And that can be fraught with peril.

So I sent you what we had created in Claude to send to the GSA concerning 800 Corporate Boulevard in the Town of Newburgh.

What worked and what didn’t in that FOIA?

Lauren: I’ll just note that FOIA certainly does not work the way it was promised under this administration or really any other. You know, it’s had a lot of longstanding problems that have really snowballed over the decades and years, but I think it’s facing some acute pressure that is unique under this administration.

So long standing problems and acute pressures right now make it a really difficult tool. But I don’t want that to discourage people from using FOIA because I think it remains the best avenue any member of the public has in forcing the government to disclose information that the public wants to see. It’s one of the most democratic tools that we have access to. And I think the more people who use it shows the government that one, there’s a demand for actual transparency and there’s a need for this law, which makes it more difficult I think for the government basically to starve FOIA offices across the board.

But in terms of the request that you sent me, there are a couple things that that Claude did really well.

And I think in general, you know, AI does pretty well when it comes to helping people craft a FOIA request objectively.

You know, one of the things that it is best at is identifying what kind of documents an agency possesses. So AI can be really useful. And I think it was in this case for highlighting specific kinds of records that the GSA (General Services Administration) is likely to keep because you know the GSA has different kinds of records and a different record system than any other agency.

You know, it’s got a different record system than ICE, different kind of records, etc. It can also be really helpful in identifying specific dates, award numbers, amounts, and these are all keywords that can be used by a FOIA officer when they receive your request to help process it.

So I think overall that is what Claude is best at and did best here.

But I think that there are a couple of things… It was almost too good.

For example, you know, the request is really big. It’s got four parts. And objectively, that’s okay. But when it comes to how an agency actually processes a request, it might be better to split that up into four smaller requests.

And I’m happy to talk about some of the other things that you could input into the Claude model to make it a stronger request.

BJ: I wanted to briefly touch on how I relied Project Saltbox and their coverage of 800 Corporate Boulevard. They are the ones that initially had discovered this, I guess, secret intended use for the warehouse of possible transportation and holding of people there.

And so I relied heavily on feeding that information into Claude, which is what generated the FOIA.

In general, would you say it’s best practices to keep these FOIA requests as specific and narrow as possible?

And if so, does that lead into… What you mentioned of instead of like one big request, it it should be maybe more specific, more narrow and smaller requests?

Lauren: I think in general it’s always been best to file a targeted request as targeted as you can. And I think, you know, while a lot of there were a lot of specifics in the request that that you posted.

It really it different sections of it lend itself to an agency coming back with specific exemptions.

So if your goal is to, for example, have the simplest processing possible, like if you’re not gonna sue, that’s when it really behooves you to break up some of those requests.

So for example, one section most likely to get met with trade secrets exemption, the exemption before.

Another one was most likely to see what’s called “the
deliberative process exemption.” So if you’re not going to sue, really the best thing to do is to break up that request to a little bit smaller.

And that also allows you to preemptively kind of argue against some of the exemptions that might be applied. But I think for the average person perhaps who might be listening when filing your request, the best thing that you can do truly to put yourself on good footing Is not just the content of the stuff that you’re asking for, but make sure that you identify your fee status in the body of the request.

I noticed that yours asked for a fee waiver, which honestly is something I’m on the fence about because it’s so rarely granted. [Reader note: At this time the GSA has said our request for a fee waiver is “pending.”]

An agency will often come back and deny it. And it just kind of becomes another interaction you have to have with an agency before they process your request. What I’ve found, what a lot of particularly reporters, journalists, whether they’re freelancers or not, researchers at educational institutions and so on, their best bet is to preemptively identify their fee status.

For example, that could be news media. And what happens here, because of amendments that were made to FOIA in 2016, this means that when an agency misses their processing deadline of 20 days, which they most certainly will, or an extra 10 days, even if you do get expedited processing, they can’t charge any fees. And so that’s eff effectively the same thing as a fee waiver, but it doesn’t really require a back and forth with the agency usually to secure it. So I think asking for a fee status is is knowing your fee status and asking for it up front, one of the best things you can do to make the FOIA process less painful and contentious.

BJ: I think that’s great advice. And for us, what we’re trying to do is train people to be their local media. I think that’s great advice. And for us, what we’re trying to do is train people to be their own local media outlets so essentially everything within a ten mile radius of your home is what we’re encouraging people to report on.

In that specific instance, what what could they claim, if anything?

Lauren: I think you could say freelancer. I think you could say freelancer, which is member of the news media. You can pick the news media option when you file your request. That was another thing with your article. I think it mentioned either emailing or sending a hard copy of your FOIA request. You certainly can do that. You’re allowed to do that. What I recommend though, honestly, is going through GSA’s PAL portal, public access link portal. Because any other way that you submit a request, whether that’s you’re emailing it, you are mailing it in, or you’re using FOIA.gov, which is the government-wide FOIA portal, when the GSA gets it through any of those venues, they have to manually take all that information and put it into their their PAL portal. So that just creates another step. Sometimes errors can come in when an agency an agency FOIA officer is re-entering information into their direct portal. I would recommend just going directly into their their PAL portal. It keeps all of your correspondences with an agency right there so you can see it, which makes it much easier when you want to appeal.

But another really common sense thing that I would just recommend your listeners do with any agency that they file a FOIA request with, especially if they’re using AI to help craft the request, prompt your AI to look at that agency’s, in this case it’s GSA’s, FOIA regulations and FOIA handbook to help you craft the strongest FOIA request possible. Because even though the FOIA is a government-wide statute, every agency has specific rules about how they handle it.

So if you can use an agency’s own rule book to really finesse your FOIA request, including understanding the record system and their their processing administrative processing track, that can really put you on a step forward to to having the most perfected request possible.

BJ: So something we discovered in putting together our articles about Newburgh is something called the Office of Professional Responsibility at ICE. And as you might have seen, this is the office that has, allegedly, I mean, you know, according to a number of people, has sent agents to harass people who have posted online, for example xomments that were critical of ICE. So let’s say you’re a reader and you come across this Office of Professional Responsibility and you want to FOIA them, but you don’t know much, what could they do in that situation?

Lauren: Well, I think the the best advice is: Don’t file a FOIA request, I think, until you have a good idea of what you’re asking for. And with the Office of Professional Responsibility, for example, that it was mentioned, I think it was a Wired article, NPR, a couple other places talked about it, we actually at Freedom of the Press Foundation actually filed a FOIA request not only about their visit to the Poll worker who was visited, to put it nicely, at her polling station place of work for posting what appeared to be just a photo of the Wired article that named Jonathan Ross. the best thing that you can do, so we filed a FOIA request about the visit that ICE made. And so things that we did to help target that request was: We named some of the ICE agents, the DHS agents who showed up because those were mentioned in AP and NPR reporting. And we also asked for information that might be related to ICE’s social media monitoring of people who were sharing the original article that named Ross, which was a Minnesota Star Tribune article.

And we also asked for anything that might be used to track articles shared by the journalists who authored that January 8th Minnesota Star Tribune article.

And so really I think the the point here, is if you don’t know exactly what you’re asking for, wait until you do.

And when you do, do your research that can help you identify individual names of ICE agents in this case, for example, individual events. That’s a really great place to start. So the you know, listing the the date of the event to visit, the poll worker is a great way for an FOIA officer to initiate a search.

The other thing that is in your best interest to do, and so for example, if you already know about the ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility or are one step ahead, is to not just submit a FOIA request to ICE for all records at the agency across the board about a certain event. Your best bet is always to examine an agency’s organizational chart to help you identify which bureau or office is most likely to have the records that you’re looking for. And the reason this is important is because the vast majority of FOIA officers across the government don’t have direct access to their agencies or bureaus records. So if I submit a FOIA request to the State Department, for example, that FOIA officer has to try and figure out from my request which bureau is most likely to have those records.

Now they might do a good job guessing, or that might not, but if you can do your due diligence to say those records are most likely to be in this office, you’re gonna help get your request process a lot faster.

And to the extent that you can name individual officials at those agencies, which is not always possible, but when you can, that also gives the FOIA officer a much better shot of submitting the tasking out that request to the person most likely to have those documents and actually be able to find documents to get back to you.

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BJ: Sort of on a similar track, let me give you the background this. So: Before ICE moved to this 800 corporate boulevard address, they had initially wanted a warehouse in the village of Chester, New York, at 29 Elizabeth Drive. And allegedly a conversation took place between New York Assemblyman Brian Maher and an unidentified representative of ICE. where they communicated Maher, due to environmental concerns involving Bob Turtle, they were not gonna proceed with 29 Elizabeth Drive.

Now this is all this is all hearsay, you know, you have believe Assemblyman Brian Maher, and there’s no reason to believe in this case that he’s lying, but there’s no way to corroborate the corroborate the story.

What, if anything, could someone do via FOIA to help corroborate something like that?

Lauren: I would take a multi-pronged approach. Well, I guess in this case, you know, I’m not as familiar with the rules around the FOI law in New York, but something you could do is submit a FOIA request for ICE for all communications between a certain date range that mention Assemblymember Maher.

You know, that a name is a very good keyword search.

And if the alleged reason that it wasn’t built was environmental or the bog turtle, you could also ask for communications that mention the name of the species of turtle, for example. but this again is a request that would be strengthened not just by those keywords, but by going to ICE’s organizational chart. And identifying, okay, which office is most likely to have done the environmental search and which office is most likely to be communicating with legislative or you know policy officials at the federal or the state level, because every agency usually has a single office that’s dedicated to working with lawmakers at various branches of government.

So that would be one ICE office to look at, and then surely there is another one that would be interested or charged with looking at these environmental concerns.

That’s that’s where I would start.

BJ: I would advise people listening to to do as well.

So my last two questions for you are, now what happens when you run into a brick wall. So for example, FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) in New York State is something we’re very familiar with and there are a LOT of exceptions.

So, just for readers, we requested communications from Governor Kathy Hochul to an organization known as United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove, which is at the center of an election fraud scandal in the Cillage of South Blooming Grove.

Hochul, after making us wait a year, claimed under Interagency, to not release any files. Under FOIA, can people expect something similar to their responses?

Lauren: Yes. Short answer unfortunately is yes. And I think my headline is do not be deterred by any of the roadblocks that you’re gonna encounter. I think it’s easy, especially in this environment, to think that you know there’s sometimes an intentional or malicious reason that your FOIA request is not getting responded to. Sometimes that’s true, but there’s also just a lot of bureaucratic red tape that’s built up at agencies across the decades that are kind of just benign benign … benign is the wrong word, but not necessarily malicious reasons why your FOIA isn’t getting processed.

The best thing you can do, is whether you’re going to sue or not, is after you file your FOIA request, find the number or the email or the phone number for that FOIA office’s public liaison and call or send an email every 30 days asking for an estimated date of completion.

This is something that every agency is obligated to provide to you. And I can tell you as somebody who used to work in a FOIA office for the Department of Commerce that when I got those, it always prompted me to check in with the people I had tasked that FOIA request to outside of the agency.” Hey, what’s the status on this? Is there anything we can do to move this forward?” It’s not a pain. You’re not being a nuisance. Just know that that’s your right to do that and to take advantage of that because I guarantee that will get a FOIA officer to think about your request more frequently than they would otherwise.

The other thing to do, especially, not necessarily at GSA, but certainly with ICE, one of the things that FOIA requesters across the board are seeing more of is ICE coming back and saying, and other agencies do this too, but your request is overbroad, even if that’s not true. So even before you get that denial, what I would encourage people to do is to read the FOIA statute and understand what the definitions of overbroad actually means because a large search is not the same as an overbroad search.

And another thing that ICE will often do is say that your request isn’t clear, it requires more clarification. Sometimes that’s true, sometimes that’s not true. So get familiar with what those definitions and parameters are to put you in the best place to appeal.

And as far as if and when you get a denial, there are a couple really good resources that can help you file an appeal, including AI.

You can still use AI at the appeal stage, but my favorite resource to point people to that, that has really understandable sections for anything that you might encounter is something called FOIA Wiki. Now, this was something that was spearheaded by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

I helped contribute it to it when I worked at the National Security Archive, but it’s basically its own little Wikipedia that has information on every exemption that you might face, including agency claims that your request is overbroad.

And on every page, there’s an example, there’s a section on strategies to how to combat this denial, and it lists out case law and stuff that you can go through. And that’s something that you could feed into an LLM to help you craft an appeal for your own specific situation.

Another great resource to look at is the National Security Archives book, Effective FOIA Requesting for Everybody. This also has really good boilerplate appeals that you can use and plug into your perhaps AI for crafting your own appeal as well.

So don’t be daunted, one if you get ignored. File those estimated dates of completion every 30 days.

And if you do get a denial, don’t be, don’t be intimidated by it. Just go ahead and go to FOIA Wiki and see how often this happens and say, okay, what is my best strategy here?

Because when you do file an appeal, that usually kicks your FOIA request up to somebody who knows the FOIA process at an agency better and knows the law better. And this is really critical because over the last year and a half, a lot of FOIA officers have left the government.

So there are a lot of contractors sitting in places like ICE’s FOIA workshop who don’t know the know the law as well as they should. So getting that appeal can get eyes on it by somebody who actually knows the law, which is to your benefit.

BJ: Is there anything I didn’t ask you on the AI front or FOIA in general that you think people should know?

Lauren: The way you framed it is in your article is, you know, the AI using AI shouldn’t be the beginning or the end of your request. Double check everything, but use AI for its strengths, which can be helping you narrow down the kinds of documents these agencies have and know what to put in your prompt.

Things like organizational infrastructure, agency specific FOIA regulations, those are those are all to your benefit. But I I would also underscore, you know, I understand a lot of folks want a FOIA ICE right now, and DHS, I do it all the time. But don’t file that FOIA request until you have a specific idea of what you’re asking for. But when you do, you should be well prepared with all the stuff we’ve talked about to file a really effective FOIA request.

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The picture you see above, taken by Eva Rizzi, is what the sky looked like in Ulster County Thursday morning.

That’s not normal.

It’s easy to move on and go about your day. On to the next horror that awaits around the bend.

But you really must pay attention to this one:

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You might be wondering what you can do to protect yourself from the wildfire smoke. I’m glad you asked. Let’s go to my former home of Buffalo:

That’s the good news: That there are things you can do to help at home manage the smoke. (If that YouTube video doesn’t play, click here.)

Here’s the bad news about the wildfire smoke: In the words of one miffed Canadian scientist, “Get used to it.”

So.

I know there’s a lot happening. But if you want to make any sort of difference in your community, you need to keep your eyes on the prize. And the prize is making sure this planet is inhabitable for your kids and grandkids. Everything else, as scary as it may be, is No. 2 on the list of problems we face right now.

The climate emergency is No. 1. And the question now should be, if the American government has no plan to provide assistance to Canada to help manage these fires—because we have a death cult in charge that hates Canada and loves oil—what assistance can New York State provide?

And if these events are going to be more and more likely, why exactly did Kathy Hochul roll back important parts of our climate law?

That’s something you might want to get on the phone about to Mr. Skoufis and our assorted Orange County Assembly representatives.

This is not a hopeless situation. If we take the climate emergency seriously, we can stop this stuff from getting worse.

But it’s up to you to say something about it, because the truth is, not enough of us are..

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That’s Sal, appropriately, on the far right in the image below.

Dorey “I spent almost $500,000 on racist TV Ads” Houle is on the left, and the man making the “I Have Dementia, Don’t Tell My Son” face is Tony Cardone.

Despite constant noise at recent public comment periods about the town board’s dysfunction, it’s not Houle asking “Where’s Sal?” Nor is it her former campaign managers, Carol Scully and her husband, multi-time losing candidate for town board Scout Master Steven Thau, Monroe Village Trustee and ally of the Alex Melchiorre administration, Debbie Berringer, Carol Hawxhurst, and other members of the Monroe Republican committee.

That doesn’t dismiss the other issues going on in the town of Monroe.

But.

I tell you this about Sal Scancarello to highlight the main point that these people are old, decrepit, irrelevant MAGA windbags who can’t process that they lost overwhelmingly in a free and fair election.

Sound familiar?

Because tonight at 9 p.m., the dictator is going to tell you about all this new “evidence” he found of fraud in the 2020 election. And for that reason, he’s going to announce plans to meddle in November’s election. This way, he and all his friends can stay out of prison for the rest of their lives.

What you see locally is just an example of what you see nationally: Old white people, over 50, who own homes and can’t process anything beyond what Fox News tells them to think.

All seething at the “whiners” who didn’t have government subsidized college tuition, suburbs, and jobs like they did thanks to the Cold War, and a general interest on the part of the government to tax the wealthy to reinvest that money back into America.

And if the death cult says elections are rigged and unfair, that trickles down to local politics, with the town Republicans doing their best to call last fall’s Monroe election into question.

In our case, this is more of the age old, and mathematically difficult to prove “Jewish Conspiracy” involving the Satmar. While there are definitely problems there, this ain’t South Blooming Grove. People came out to vote in the Fall of 2024, and they did not vote for this weirdo MAGA shit.

But there’s nothing you can do about it. Because it’s a cult, and Sal Scancarello’s absence, and the lack of calls into investigating that absence, is proof.

If these people care SO MUCH about the functions of town government, where is all the concern about a missing town councilmember making about $17,000 this year for doing less than nothing.

There isn’t any.

Because as I keep saying, it’s a cult. And they only care about what’s good for the cult. Which is why we will not survive this moment in American history until we get our heads around the fact that you’re not dealing with two political parties. You are dealing with one that’s been hijacked by a cult, and the other that’s paralyzed from fighting the cult because they’re getting a lot of money from people who fund the cult.

(By the way, U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan has finally divorced himself from AIPAC. Better late than never, big guy. I guess we just needed to let Israel pursue a course of vengeance, instead of justice, following October 7 and getting us into a whole-ass war. So. To recap: Israel committing genocide is fine with Pat Ryan. Israel getting us into dumb-ass wars with Iran is not. Got it. Thanks, Pat!)

The Monroe Gazette has been told from sources close to the matter, Mr. Scancarello does not have a medical excuse for his absence. His Internet presence has not offered any clues either.

Mr. Scancarello, unlike his friends Dorey Houle and Interim village of Walden Manager Tony Cardone (below), is not very online and constantly spreading bullshit like Mr. Cardone in our example here.

America gets Trump. Monroe gets Tony Cardone. This man will not let go—not until he sneaks his way back into office long enough to get that taxpayer-funded pension. This way, he can steal from you until he’s “off the table.”

Here’s one of Sal’s more recent Facebook updates:

As you all know, Charlie Kirk was a racist that read C-Minus 4Chan posts into a microphone for money. Specifically money provided to him from Fossil Fuel oligarchs. So, of course MAGA Sal Scancarello is going to participate in making Kirk a State approved Saint.

We FOIL’ed for the exact number of meetings Mr. Scancarello has missed and the Town of Monroe declined to provide that information, stating that they don’t have a separate attendance tracker for Councilmembers.

Given the attendance issues with Mr. Scancarello, one would think they’d start keeping track.

We reached out to Mr. Scancarello for comment.

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If you want to fix the place that you live in, you can’t do it sitting on the couch. And you can’t do it when you don’t have a full Board of Trustees to do the job they were elected to do. The resolution to this story is a simple one: the town of Monroe can remove Mr. Scancarello from office and hold a special election to fill his seat. I think all those people flapping their lips about how upset they are with Supervisor Richardson should get off the couch and put their necks on the line.

Don’t you? I mean, these people have nothing but time to complain on Facebook and complain at meetings. Let’s see if their opinions are as popular as they think they are.

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Pictured Above: Describing the above scene, Town of Newburgh Councilmember Mary Lou Carolan told The Monroe Gazette, “Hundreds of protestors gathered on the Newburgh Town Hall lawn to oppose the ICE detention center Tuesday night. It was gratifying to see people of all ages and cultures coming together to make sure their opposition is heard. It is not enough for the town council to sign a resolution. They have to actively fight this and the current members have varying levels of commitment to it. Public pressure had them sign it, now we will see who will take action and how. There are lots of childish and vitriolic comments that have been put on social media by the opposing keyboard warriors but not one of them had the courage to be one of the over 50 speakers to express themselves to the board last night. This fight is just beginning in Newburgh. Let's hope town leadership is up to the task.”

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Just a quick note to readers: There’s a lot of “I don’t know” from your local, state, and federal officials on what, exactly, ICE intends to do with the warehouse at 800 Corporate Boulevard in the Town of Newburgh. ICE and DHS have not replied to requests for comment.

We can confirm the Attorney General’s office is exploring their options.

We can also confirm the General Services Administration received our FOIA and is processing it. OR is at least saying they are.

Governor Kathy Hochul even made an effort to feign interest about the safety of anyone that’s brown in her State by sending a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin, asking for more information.

If she really cared, she would have insisted New York For All and the New York Privacy Act be passed on the first day of the legislative session, vowing to sign it. But she didn’t. She did the minimum. Again. Which is about all you’re going to get from the New York State Democrats in the face of MAGA’s increased aggression.

(A story we’ll return to when our dictator makes his big speech on Thursday about all the alleged election fraud he’s suddenly found, six years and multiple defeats in court later.)

Remember friends, the Democrats feel they don’t have to work too hard. Especially when losers like this are their competition:

Video Above: Mike Lawler at the Hispanic Heritage Festival in Valhalla NY last weekend. This man voted for ICE multiple times over the last year, starting with the One Big Beautiful Bill, which he cast the deciding vote on the first time it went from the House to the Senate.

At the moment, the resolution read at last night’s Town of Newburgh Board meeting is not available online. The Monroe Gazette has requested a copy from Town Clerk Lisa Vance-Ayers. We’ll submit a FOIL request in 24 hours if we don’t receive it.

(You can read the full resolution here.)

You can also hear it read at 16:17 in the video below, and public comment from Town of Newburgh residents begins at 58:00. The Town has, at the moment, restricted embedding of the video, so we’ve made our own version available below:

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Photo Credit: Mike Schade. Faces have been blurred to protect protestors from house calls from ICE. Like this one.

Sarah Maida, the Working Families Party Outreach Chair, member of Newburgh Resists, and lifelong resident of the Town of Newburgh, said in a press release,

“We know ICE is already destroying families and ruining lives in our community. We also know the human rights atrocities that happen in ICE detention every day. It’s time for our Town of Newburgh and regional leaders to take decisive action - not just a position of opposition - and do everything in their power to ensure ICE isn’t welcome here.”

If you doubt Sarah, we’d like you to watch these two videos:

We’ll have more on this situation as it develops. Like I said, there’s a whole lot of “I don’t know” coming out of the mouths of people who should have a plan, but don’t.

I do.

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Pictured above: You can use the case index # (on the top right of the above image) to pull up the court documents if you’d like to read more. I’d link to the case directly, but NYSCEF (the New York State Court Electronic Filing System) just made a recent change that makes it harder to use. Not only can you not find the cases you’re looking for now, but you can’t link to those cases either.

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I spent most of yesterday—Monday—in court. That’s because, a while back, I tried to obtain meeting minutes and agendas from the City of Newburgh’s Human Rights Commission and the Police Community Relations Board.

The City of Newburgh had not posted anything from those two boards, or their Board of Ethics, going back to the beginning of 2021.

So, we sued them. And we won.

But as it turns out, the City not only violated FOIL, it also violated the New York State Open Meetings Law (OML), which was the purpose of our court hearing on Monday.

My impression, based on the judge’s decision, is that the judge felt the city’s response to our FOIL request was lacking, and the violation of OML was so egregious that the unusual step of having a court date and even calling witnesses was warranted.

Something that doesn’t usually happen with an Article 78 proceeding.

The Freedom of Information Law in New York State is one of very few mechanisms people have to get any sort of accountability for their government’s actions. We take it seriously, and as mentioned, we plan to deploy it against every municipality in the form of a credit card audit until New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli finishes the now two-year-old audit of the Village of South Blooming Grove.

Documentation, as we just wrote, is how you kill fascism.

There’s another reason we’re interested in the City of Newburgh’s meeting minutes and agendas: Marcus Burks.

Marcus Burks was allegedly killed by the Newburgh Police Department. Just like George Floyd was in Minnesota.

Even the Attorney General, whom we’re not huge fans of because of her inaction in South Blooming Grove, is investigating the Burks killing.

I don’t know what I can do for residents of the City of Newburgh, given that I have no car and maybe have $300 to my name, but I do know that Marcus Burks is not the first inhabitant of the City of Newburgh who was allegedly killed by the Newburgh Police Department. I also know that factually he is not the first person they’ve abused, as we’re aware of at least one case where someone has been assaulted for asking too many questions about the department.

These incidents make those Human Rights Commission and Police Community Relations Board minutes and agendas over the last five years—since the murder of George Floyd—something of high interest to us. That’s why we took the steps that we did to sue for them.

It may be a while before we get them, but as we have additional information to share on this case or our continued investigation into the City of Newburgh’s Police Department, we will keep you posted.

For now, pardon the short post. I’m exhausted. The City of Newburgh’s lack of preparation for the case kept us at the courthouse from 10 a.m. to just before 3 p.m.

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The Photo-News is known to publish letters to the editor from compulsive liars. Jay Westerveld is one of those people. Tony Cardone is another. And so is convicted felon Tim Mitts.

All three men have a penchant for spinning fiction in local Orange County Facebook groups, egged on by their small and—literally in some cases—dying fellow white supremacists.

(We can say that because, at this point, if you’re not concerned about ICE agents all over Monroe, inspecting vehicles of commuters while they’re at work, or kidnapping your neighbors, then you’re a white supremacist. Tony Cardone did nothing to protect these people during his time as Town Supervisor. When asked directly at a Town Board meeting whether he supports what ICE is doing in Monroe, he refused to answer. So did former State Senate candidate Dorey Houle, who is alleged to be instructing Westerveld on what to post.)

So yeah.

It really is that simple now, here in 2026.

Video Above: ICE is seen inspecting the Millpond Shortline terminal's parking lot, looking to match license plates with their ever-growing database that can, and has, caught up over 170 American citizens in their dragnet. Below, days later, ICE can be seen kidnapping yet another member of our community.

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I am telling you all of this because convicted felon Tim Mitts is at the center of a pretty big developing story, and you can’t believe a single word that man says—none. So the usual journalistic practice of trying to get comment from a compulsive liar with an alleged drinking problem goes right out the window.

Thankfully, Tim Mitts published a letter to the editor in The Photo-News, and despite the fact that The Photo-News didn’t bother to fact-check it, I am working to do so.

For now, Mitts’s letter serves as an official, verifiable statement from him that I can share with you. Without having to worry about whether or not it was written on a Bourbon Street bar napkin before they kicked him out for the night. (They close this week, by the way.)

So. Here is what I can share, factually, as of now concerning the island on Round Lake: Yes, the property has been leased to convicted felon Tim Mitts. This is particularly troubling given Mr. Mitts's decades-long, verifiable failure to make payments to a multitude of people across Orange and Rockland Counties. (A simple LexisNexis search for Tim Mitts will reveal the hundreds of thousands of dollars this man owes people.)

So the question now is when, not if, Mr. Mitts is unable to pay his bills, what happens then?

The exact figures and other details of the arrangement are unknown at this time.

We are currently investigating.

You may recall that Mitts was at the center of another controversial set of real estate transactions during his 2024 State Senate Campaign.

Mitts allegedly received favorable real estate transactions facilitated by State Senator Skoufis in exchange for running against Dorey Houle on the Conservative Party line. Thus siphoning votes away from Houle whom narrowly lost to Skoufis in 2022.

Mitts has denied these claims. The State Senator also refuses to comment on this arrangement or why he insisted on toasting Tim Mitts upon announcing to a room full of Orange County Democrats his plan.

Mitts publicly proclaimed in The Photo-News that the land on the island would not be developed. Previously, a wealthy developer wanted to put a helicopter on the island and build a land bridge connecting it to Lakes Road. Whether it’s the same developer with the illegal helipad at 58 Fort Worth is unclear at this time.

Nobody in the Town of Monroe believes Tim Mitts.

This is evident from his failed bid not only to run for Town Supervisor in 2025 but also to unseat Tony Cardone from the Conservative ballot line in the 2025 Primary. So we can statistically say nobody in Monroe trusts Tim Mitts or believes him when he speaks. If they did, they would have supported him. (This lack of support should, I hope, also further prove that Facebook is not reality and you should not take what you see in these local Facebook groups to think they reflect the opinion of the majority. They do not. It’s usually the older, white, racist boomers and the bots who speak the loudest on Facebook.)

Mitts, being petty and vindictive, closed his letter to the editor by saying, “Preserving Monroe one property at a time where our government cannot for the last 10 years.” This was a shot at the current town supervisor—and probably a one-term supervisor after she has to raise taxes to clean up Tony Cardone’s mess—Maureen Richardson. But here, Mitts is wrong, because as flawed as the Richardson administration has been, it’s still not as bad as Tony Cardone and Dorey Houle. And he’s further wrong because if not for Richardson, there would be a super sketchy dinosaur theme park in Town. That was recent history—well within ten years. Meanwhile, the properties Mitts boasts about preserving are allegedly financially underwater.

The one thing we want to make clear in all this: The Town should own that island. The Town should own as much undeveloped property as it can acquire.

We are living through a climate emergency, and our area is prone to forest fires. We need to preserve as much land as we can to protect against this near-term threat (big ass forest fires) and long-term threat (constant flooding).

Preserved land acts as a carbon sink and can help divert rainwater from the stronger storms we’re experiencing.

I’m old enough to remember when Lakes Road flooded once, maybe twice from 1987 to 2012. (This is hyperbole; it probably flooded more than that, but only twice in my lifetime was it bad enough to remember.) Now, whenever we get a severe storm, there’s a threat that it floods. This puts all residents living on this road in danger.

Tim Mitts has routinely complained about the “fake” climate emergency in his numerous social media posts. (What an unsatisfying life one must have to dedicate all your free time and energy to posting on Facebook to an audience that universally mocks and distrusts you.)

I do not trust anything this man says. Neither does the federal government. And even though they’re questionable these days, the fact that we agree on something should encourage you to do the same.

The Town has to act and take that island back before we lose any more salvageable land due to corruption (Cardone and his alleged bribes) and incompetence (Mitts).

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Pat Ryan is up for re-election against Jackie Auringer. Like you, I don’t know much about Ms. Auringer, so we’ve been in touch with her campaign to give her an opportunity to speak to you directly.

We’ll extend the same invitation to Rep. Pat Ryan’s office, but his PR people tend to write back only when I’m breaking news to his staff, not when I’m asking about the AIPAC money Ryan accepts.

To his credit, Ryan has offered to sign a pledge with Ms. Auringer that would prohibit them both from accepting any PAC money during this campaign. We will follow up on this and will be following the congressional race more closely once we get to the fall.

For now, I just want to remind everyone that Pat Ryan was one of very few Democrats to support passing the GENIUS Act.

Unfortunately, not many people understand crypto, let alone what the GENIUS Act is. So I spoke to Dr. Algernon Austin, the director of race and economic justice at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Austin is a critic of cryptocurrency, like I am, and he does an excellent job of explaining what it is, how it works and why the GENIUS Act is bad news.

You can listen to the interview here.

-BJ

P.S. Apologies for the short post. I have two podcast episodes coming to you next week concerning our FOIA project. I’m now only a day behind because of a migraine. That’s going to happen as I try to keep up this daily schedule.

When it does, I’ll pop in here with a highlight from our sister project, Stupid Sexy Privacy.

Nobody listened to us.

And here we are with ICE setting up shop in a nearby municipality.

We don’t believe in “I Told You So.”

But if I were a resident of Orange County, I’d be asking the legislature to pass a global ban on any ICE facilities, and I’d be asking each municipality to explicitly do the same.

If you can do this to opt-out of hosting marijuana dispensaries, you can do the same for concentration camps.

The Town of Newburgh provides us with another case study for why you might want to follow this advice.

Because ICE isn’t going away.

They’re quieter now, but they’re arresting 2,000 people a day, harassing people who post anti-ICE comments on the internet, and judges are handing out sentences that essentially amount to life sentences to people protesting outside of ICE facilities.

While Chester residents, and numerous others, organized a protest of more than 800 people to oppose the ICE facility at 29 Elizabeth Drive, the Newburgh Town Board, despite warnings to pass a local law prohibiting the use of its warehouses by ICE, chose not to do so. Now, Town of Newburgh residents have to do what Chester residents did before them.

Pictured Above: U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan speaks to concerned Town of Newburgh residents about the potential ICE facility opening at 800 Corporate Boulevard. ICE and DHS have not replied to requests for comment about their plans for this address from The Monroe Gazette. Faces of protestors have been blurred to protect them from retaliation from ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan’s office did not reply to requests for comment concerning whether Pat Ryan will pledge to investigate and, if criminal action is found, prosecute everyone involved with the ICE warehouse program and other ICE operations.

U.S. Rep. Ryan’s opponent, Jackie Auringer, put out a statement claiming to oppose the Newburgh ICE facility, but then puzzlingly blamed New York Democrats for its existence. Stating, “When Albany blocks the use of existing, professional, well-run local facilities, like our county jails, it should surprise no one when the federal government starts looking for alternatives.”

However, both the Chester facility and the Newburgh facility predate the recent laws passed in Albany.

The Monroe Gazette asked Ms. Auringer if she can clarify the connection between the Democrats’ relative inaction on immigration this session and how that specifically created the situation in Newburgh or need for a facility in Chester.

We also asked how she could consider Orange County Jail professionally run given all this.

She has not replied at deadline.

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It Turns Out, the Town of Newburgh Is Just as Dysfunctional as Everywhere Else

Town of Newburgh Councilmember Mary Lou Carolan requested a formal resolution opposing the Chester facility and future facilities like it in February; the board offered no meaningful response. She told The Monroe Gazette, “The Town Supervisor and Deputy Town Supervisor stated back in February that they were doing what was asked of them by the County Executive, which was to write a letter stating the town of Newburgh aligns with Orange County in not wanting ICE facilities in the county.

They stopped short of a resolution or any other strong statement decrying the use of town warehouses as detention centers. When I asked whether they knew if all the warehouses in the town were occupied, the Deputy Supervisor implied that they were. My concerns about the plethora of warehouses in the town, which make us vulnerable to becoming the next location for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operations, were summarily disregarded.” (The Monroe Gazette has reached out to Deputy Supervisor Scott Manley for comment.)

We asked Councilmember Carolan about what made the town attractive to DHS; she told us, “Over the last six months, we had ample time to plan and prepare a strategy for handling situations like this. Upon hearing of this proposed site on June 30, I immediately asked the Town Supervisor what he knew about this, and his response was that this was the first time he was hearing about it.”

[Reader note: As we already pointed out, this was a lie by the Town Supervisor. He was previously asked about this situation by The Monroe Gazette on May 19.]

“My question was: “Why is the town in the dark about this?” Granted the feds are doing what they want across the country, ignoring local laws and working directly with building owners to cut lucrative deals with DHS, but we should know who is occupying our warehouses and what businesses are being run out of them. Why are we not more involved in these decisions as we plan out our town and how we want to grow into the future? Where is our vision, our leadership, our support for all the communities that make up our town? Over 40% of town residents are families of color — our neighboring city of Newburgh is rich with immigrant communities, but DHS is creating fear, not building community, and that is abhorrent to me.

Seventy percent of the occupants in DHS facilities across the country have no criminal convictions, and yet we are demonizing our neighbors, chasing them down in the streets, categorizing them as “undocumented immigrants” and arresting them for no reason but their skin color. I don’t want that terror on our streets. It is promoting racist violence.”

Unfortunately, your friends at The Monroe Gazette could not attend the rally on July 7. Some of you may recall, our car was destroyed. But you may have noticed Chester Town Supervisor Brandon Holdridge in the above pictures — the first one, behind the congressman.

We asked Supervisor Holdridge to comment on how the event went, given the vitriolic online attacks from critics claiming the protest in Newburgh was some kind of “communist” rally. Holdridge told us, “The protest at Newburgh against the rogue DHS agency was another show of strength and unity in the Hudson Valley against abuse, inhumane treatment, and authoritarianism. We are angry, but we are committed to showing it through civil disobedience as we did in my hometown of Chester earlier this year. DHS won’t last here for long; we will defeat them again.”

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What Comes Next

Councilmember Carolan shared with us, “Protesters were urged to call New York Attorney General Letitia James to express their desire not to have an ICE facility in our town and were also encouraged to gather outside Town Hall on Monday, July 13 at 5:30 p.m. to once again protest this facility and make the leaders accountable for how this will be handled.” The Attorney General’s office can be reached at 1-800-771-7755. You can, and should, also use this form to send Letitia James some feedback. (The Monroe Gazette can confirm the AG’s office is investigating the matter; however, we can’t promise she’ll get on this faster than the South Blooming Grove situation.)

Members of the community are encouraged to contact Town of Newburgh Clerk Lisa M. Vance-Ayers to ensure that this meeting will be held as scheduled, and — if you are a town resident — ask the clerk in advance if it’s possible to sign up for public comment. townclerk@townofnewburgh.org or 845-564-4554.

All members of the public are encouraged to attend the Town Board meeting, but we encourage you to reserve public comment time for town residents first before speaking if you are not a town resident.

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Pictured Above: “The behavior was unbelievable, I’ve never seen that,” one Monroe resident in attendance last night told The Monroe Gazette in reference to Village of Walden Interim Manager and former Monroe Town Supervisor Tony Cardone, adding they were uncomfortable when “human beings behave like animals,” describing Houle, Thau, and Cardone’s behavior.

Another attendee added, “While in the audience Tony kept scoping the room making it clear who their allies were like a gang.”

We can report the Town of Monroe has filed a formal complaint with the Village of Walden concerning their employee’s behavior on Monday.

Village of Walden Mayor Becky Pearson was contacted by The Monroe Gazette concerning Village Manager Cardone’s behavior, but we have not heard back as of publication time.

The Monroe Gazette has a pending FOIL request with the Village concerning all records related to the hiring of Mr. Cardone and is scheduled to receive a response from the Village on or around July 23.

The Town of Monroe still has not completed a FOIL request for two years of Tony Cardone’s internet history during his tenure as Town Supervisor. The FOIL request is nearly a year old and will be escalated to small claims court in the near future.

We believe this Internet history may help corroborate accusations that Mr. Cardone accepted bribes from real estate developers like Lipa Deutsch, whom was responsible for pushing through the Monroe Commons project on Nininger road. You may recall Mr. Cardone stopped a Town of Monroe meeting, dead in its tracks, to claim he had never once taken a bribe.

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During the July 6, Monroe Town Board meeting, residents were reminded why over 60% of us—Satmar and non Satmar alike—conclusively agreed that Tony Cardone and Dorey Houle’s MAGA ass needed to be kicked out of office.

Mr. Cardone, Scout Master Steve Thau, and Dorey “I spent nearly a half million dollars on racist TV ads” Houle repeatedly disrupted the July 6 Town of Monroe meeting in another shameful display of what MAGA does when the rubber of their fun house reality meets the road:

1. Disrupt meetings so that everyone is only paying attention to them and nothing else.

2. Repeatedly lie about their role in any incident they created, while blaming their opponents for the mess they made.

Does this tactic sound familiar? Guess who made over $1.2B from crypto money last year while president? And guess what he’s got to say about that when asked:

3. They attack our public officials and anyone who supports them online with rage-bait like the screenshot below. That’s why many people stayed silent about Cardone during his nearly decade-long tenure of lining his pockets with your money. It’s also why people are afraid to speak on the record about him.

They fear retaliation—both at Town Board meetings from Cardone and his allies, and online from his supporters: Local Nazi Jay Westerveld, Jeff & Christine Manson who managed Dorey Houle’s racist State Senate campaign, Alex Rivera, Saul Brewmeister, Dustin James, “Fred Durbin” (probably a Westerveld sock puppet), and a few other clowns.

MAGA Claim: “Tony Cardone would never cave to special interests.” And here, I think it’s pretty obvious that by special interests, they mean Jews. Specifically Satmar Jews, our Haredi brothers and sisters. The overwhelming majority of people who voted in the Town election were not Satmar.

So the above post is a twofer. Not only is it a lie.

It’s also engaging in an anti-semitic conspiracy theory that “The Jews” have all the power in local elections. That’s not true.

Above you can see Cardone and Scoutmaster Steven Thau, who, as far as we know, has never found himself alone with children in the way you might assume when you think about the Scouts these days …

Just before the November 2025 election.

If you were to look at most Monroe Town and Village community groups, you will find all those people I named, and of course Convicted Felon Tim Mitts and his latest con job, constantly attacking the current Town Board—and myself too.

(But all they seem to have is “BJ is a blogger in his mommy’s basement,” which is adorable. Like they’re trying so hard, you guys, to come up with something clever, and that’s the best they have. Ancient stuff from 2003. Bless their hearts.)

You and I can talk about whether or not we completely trust Supervisor Richardson another time.

But I’m flagging this for you all now: Do not let these people back into power.

I know you might be thinking it.

But I promise you.

The only people Steve Thau, Dorey Houle, and Tony Cardone care about are Steve Thau, Dorey Houle, and Tony Cardone. They want that sweet, sweet government money they were taking and abusing for themselves, the same way their God King is doing with our federal tax dollars.

And for a group of people who like saying, “Enough is enough,” I think it’s time they take a hint that we don’t want them. Because apparently getting run out of town in a lopsided election wasn’t enough for them.

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I don’t know if you know this about me, but I have controversial opinions.

For example, I think “Con Air” is the greatest movie ever made.

(Note: I did not say film, I said movie. There’s a difference.)

I believe this so much so, that I have multiple copies of Con Air.

I got it on DVD.

I got it on my MacBook Pro.

I got it on my PlayStation 4.

Or … I had it on my PlayStation 4.

That is, until Sony decided that, regardless of the fact that I purchased a film with my own money, they have the right to delete that movie because they’re no longer offering movies for sale.

This happened a while ago, but it’s relevant for something that’s in the news. So I hope you’re paying attention.

Sony was able to do this because, whenever you pay for something and download it, you don’t actually own it.

(Those of you who follow our sister website, Stupid Sexy Privacy, already know this.)

But it’s no less true.

You don’t own the thing you paid for.

You’re renting it.

Same goes for your music.

Same goes for all your games.

And if you think that sucks, just wait.

It’s going to get worse.

Because pretty soon, this is how everything is going to be. And it sucks. Just ask our farmer friends:

I’m telling you this for two reasons:

First: Sony will soon no longer offer physical copies of their PlayStation games. That, in effect, means you cannot own any game that you buy for the PlayStation. You’re going to instead pay $60 or so to rent that game, and at any time, for any reason, Sony can end your rental.

(If you have an Apple TV, for example, and you purchase a movie through the Apple store, the same applies. You don’t own that movie. You’re renting it from Apple.)

The oligarchs (Bezos, Ellison, Zuckerberg, Musk, Page, Brin, Thiel, and others) are pushing us into a world where you and I don’t own anything.

We just rent it. In the Middle Ages, they called that serfdom. Today SONY calls it, “adapting to consumer trends.”

Financially — which is the only thing that gets most Americans to care about anything — this means you’re perpetually on the hook every month with yet another bill.

Imagine one for using your washing machine.

Now your dryer.

And don’t forget the dishwasher.

Or your car.

Sucks, right?

That’s capitalism when you take the guardrails away. And we need to put those guardrails back. Unfortunately, we have all the wrong people for the job, and the rest of us cannot afford — or have the time — to run ourselves.

The majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

And while most Sony games are purchased digitally, it’s a lie for Sony to tell people that people are buying less and less physical media.

The opposite is true. Especially with the younger generations.

So, who’s supposed to help you fix this?

The fascists and weirdos?

I don’t know if you noticed, but they don’t have any solutions. Just people to blame and long lists of others they want to get rid of.

I don’t see a whole lot of people in red hats with detailed plans about how they’re going to fill all those hospital employee vacancies, for example, when they start arbitrarily deporting our Haitian brothers and sisters.

Do you?

You see a lot of that locally too. I see a whole lot of noise coming from Dorey “I Spent Almost a Half-Million Dollars on Racist TV Ads” Houle telling you how much she dislikes Monroe’s Town Supervisor, but I don’t see her offering a solution to a budget crisis she actually created when she was on the board.

But don’t worry, everyone — Dorey here is going to be the leader of the resistance. And she’s going to bring along her cool friends: dangerous anti-vaxxer Tom Lapolla, local Nazi Jay Westerveld, and Mike Egan, who helped create America’s first official theocracy with the Town of Palm Tree. (For more on that, see the documentary film, “City of Joel.”)

Don’t get us started on our Orange County legislator, Peter Tuohy either.

He was, allegedly, last seen drunk at a veterans breakfast. We can’t confirm he was drunk — we have reached out to Mr. Tuohy for comment — but “drunk at a veterans breakfast” is toward the top of the list of things we could imagine Peter Tuohy doing instead of representing his constitutents.

That’s a look at the local and national Republicans.

Now let’s look at the Democrats, which brings us to the flyer at the top of this post.

(No. Those aren’t my teeth marks. Finley is waging a one-cat war on paper. Personally, I think he should have started with Skoufis’s face.)

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Pretty much everyone in Orange County got this flyer. And on the surface, it looks good, right?

But I have to ask you: In a time of crisis, especially a financial one, what do you think is more relevant to the people of Orange County: The IDA thing few people understand, and fewer care about. Or this: