Another Day, Another Mysterious Fire at a Wayne Corts Property

Burn Baby Burn! It's time again for another Southern Orange County local news round-up.

(Photo taken by Blaise Gomez/News 12 at 1 Carla Court)

I jinxed myself. I said things have been quiet since Thanksgiving, and now here we are with a post that initially totaled almost nine thousand words.

You know what that means? It's time for a big-ass local news round-up.

Before we get started, if you like what we do at The Monroe Gazette, there are two ways to support us:

1. Don't get an annual subscription. We're going to transition to Fascists & Weirdos full-time on or around November 15th, 2025. Until then, you can become a monthly subscriber to The Monroe Gazette for $10. With the monthly subscription, which you can purchase here, you can support this project and cancel once we transition.

2. The Monroe Gazette is now an affiliate of Ground News. What I like about Ground News is that the corporate media sucks. With Ground News, you can see who's spinning today's headlines and get the actual news about what's happening from the left, the right, and the center.

Monroe Gazette subscribers can use this link and get 15% off a Ground News subscription, which supports both their project and ours.

Let's get to the news, starting with our old friend, Mr. Wayne Corts.

Burn Baby Burn!

As a friendly reminder, according to Wayne Corts's attorney, Joseph J. Haspel, Mr. Corts is not an arsonist.

So here we are, yet again, with another Wayne Corts property experiencing yet another mysterious fire.

And I have no doubt that the second I publish this article, some troll will emerge from their cave and say, "Mr. Corts is a great guy, a hero, and an upstanding member of the community." (Seriously. Look at any social media post from any journalist concerning Wayne Corts, and you'll find people repeating this line.)

When I post about Mr. Corts, you can also expect to hear classic hits like "B.J. Mendelson is not a real journalist" and my favorite, "He doesn't even live here!"

One new line they've tried is, "This isn't how the OLD Monroe Gazette would act!"

The original Monroe Gazette ceased publication in the 1980s. The guy who ran the thing is long dead. So, unless you have access to one of those fake Long Island Psychics, get outta here telling us what they would have or would not be doing in 2024.

(Not that it matters because we have zero connection with the original newspaper. The Monroe Gazette is just the name of this newsletter, not the company behind it.)

My guess is, much like The Times-Herald Record or The Photo-News, the original Monroe Gazette would be a shell of itself today.

Most likely filled with ads and stories from the wire services with very little local news. In fact, if they're anything like The Photo-News, they're likely also publishing misleading headlines, one of which we will cover today.

Can I tell you something? I like the line "But he doesn't even live here!" I laugh my ass off every time they say it because it's becoming the local equivalent of "But her emails!"

If I ran for office, like the Monroe Town Board, I would sell t-shirts that said, "But he doesn't even live here!" on them.

Anyway, Woodbury's actual local heroes, the Woodbury Fire Department, responded to a fire at 1 Carla Cort, owned by Wayne Corts, on December 7th. Unlike the last time a mysterious fire occurred at a Wayne Corts property, two Orange County Fire Inspectors were also at the scene this time.

In a statement provided to The Monroe Gazette by Deputy Commissioner of Emergency Services and Fire Coordinator Vini Tankasali, we were told:

"The Orange County Fire Investigation Unit did investigate this fire. The investigation has concluded and the disposition of the Fire Investigation Unit as to the cause is Undetermined. The "Undetermined" disposition occurs when we are unable to identify a single cause and rule out all others with absolute certainty. "

So, they don't know if it was arson or not.

A few Woodbury residents have alleged that Wayne Corts Jr. started the fire. There's no evidence to verify that claim besides him mysteriously scrubbing his social media accounts not long after the fire happened. This would also not be the first time Mr. Corts Jr. disabled his Instagram account under mysterious circumstances.

Since we don't know, and apparently, we'll never find out, it's no use speculating. However, there is now additional reason to encourage our friends at the Woodbury Fire Department to be hypervigilant the next time a fire breaks out at a Wayne Corts-owned property. And for our friends in Rockland County to do the same should one of Mr. Corts’s properties experience a similar mystery.

The Drone Story Is a Facebook Hoax Fueled By Political Grifters

Let's pick up where we left off on this story, with Crooked Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus calling you all soft.

Like any hoax, a small part of the drone story is genuine. In this case, after the US gave Ukraine permission to fire US-made missiles deep into Russian territory, drones appeared outside military bases in the United Kingdom. According to the BBC, who first covered this story, these were bases known by the Russians to host US military assets.

Not long after the first BBC report, drones were then reported outside military installations in New Jersey. The story begins and ends there. The FAA, the FBI, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the President of the United States have all uniformly said there is no story and nothing to worry about.

Facebook's algorithm doesn't care if something is true or not. It only cares if what you post is getting a lot of engagement. So, if people post about drones, which gets a lot of attention, others will start posting about them, too.

The point is that in all of these Orange and Rockland County posts about drones, you are most likely looking at the same few drones from different angles and times of day. This creates the illusion that there are more of them then there actually are. (Again, I'm not saying there are NO drones. But the number of them has been blown way out of proportion.)

Now factor in political grifters looking to get themselves on Fox News and a corporate news media that doesn't bother to do any fact-checking, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Above: Political Grifter Congressman Pat Ryan causes alarm about Stewart International Airport shutting down a single runway for roughly an hour on December 14th. Mr. Ryan described this minor incident as “the complete shutdown of Stewart International Airport.”

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That's why it's important to remember that, around the world, Facebook can and has gotten people killed through similar manufactured acts of hysteria. So much so that they had to change the company's name from Facebook to Meta because of reports like this one.

If you spend more than fifteen minutes (collectively) on Facebook throughout the day, you can significantly improve your mental health and outlook on the world by removing it — and Meta's other Apps — from your phone. We spoke to Kelly Carlin — George Carlin’s daughter and someone who holds a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology — for the Stupid Sexy Privacy podcast a while back for our Digital Detox episode. You can listen to that here.

The Monroe Gazette contacted the FAA via the Freedom of Information Act to request permitted drone flights in Orange County during November and December. We will share that information if and when we get it. Since Crooked County Executive Steve Neuhaus claims to have been in touch with "people at the Pentagon" about the drones, we have also FOIL'ed for the County Executives emails to anyone with a .mil and .gov email about the drones sent in November and December. He also bragged about having "top secret security clearance." This may be true; over a million people have that classification, but we also contacted the US Navy to comment because we thought it was strange for a Navy Reservist like Neuhaus to brag about having such a classification. Given his propensity to tell Tall Tales for being such a short man, nobody should ever take Mr. Neuhaus's word regarding anything.

Ok. But What If It's Aliens?

Regarding UAP (which is what the government calls UFOs now), I reached out to a spokesperson for AARO and Senator Kristin Gillibrand's office.

In case you don't know, AARO stands for All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office and is the clearinghouse for military and other defense personnel to share information in one centralized repository concerning UAP. There's a whole saga about the creation of AARO that I won't get into; this article is long enough as it is.

What you need to know is that AARO is an actual government agency. This agency was created as part of a more significant push to declassify any and all information relating to what the government knows and doesn't know concerning UAP.

I am very critical of President Trump, but I give his administration a lot of credit when it comes to declassifying UAP documents. Arguably, we would not even be calling them UAP and holding these public committees (like the one in the video above) if he hadn't been elected the first time.

You might be wondering what Senator Kristin Gillibrand has to do with UAP. In the video above, you can see her act as the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. This subcommittee is overseeing AARO and other DOD programs related to UAP.

Senator Gillibrand and Senator Schumer, your representatives in the Senate, are working with both Senate Democrats and Republicans to investigate UAP. Both Gillibrand's office and AARO declined to comment when The Monroe Gazette reached out for comment about what connection exists, if any, concerning the drones and UAP. Why did we ask for a comment? Because News 12 ran with the story of people in Orange County seeing "Orbs" floating in the sky. In UFO mythology, the Orbs are generally how what we now call UAP are often described.

New Windsor & Why You Need To Ask For What You Want

New Windsor is outside our coverage area, so I don't make it a point to pay attention to what's going on there unless there's some crossover with Kiryas Joel or South Blooming Grove.

Occasionally, people will claim there's a connection between the three. So, I wanted to help debunk something I heard concerning New Windsor's connection to South Blooming Grove and the City of Kiryas Joel.

First, remember that South Blooming Grove and the City of Kiryas Joel are not friends. They're not working together. They're adversaries. Joel Stern, South Blooming Grove's de facto Mayor, is trying to rush the creation of a city on behalf of Avraham Bur Jackobowitz and Grand Rebbe Zalman Teitelbaum to limit the growth and influence of Grand Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum and Mr. Gedalye Szegedin. People living in Blooming Grove and Washingtonville must be alert about South Blooming Grove. Mr. Stern will not stop at the Village limits; he's coming for the entire Town. This way, he can surround the City of Kiryas Joel.

Given the speed at which Mr. Stern is moving, one would think that Mr. Szegedin would use his considerable influence to slow Stern down through his connections in state government like James G. Skoufis, but Szegedin hasn't done so. (Mr. Szegedin typically responds to requests for comment from The Monroe Gazette, but interestingly not when asked about Woodbury or South Blooming Grove.)

The Satmar don't like the non-Satmar to see any infighting between them. This has been true for half a century now in Southern Orange County. So if you're waiting for the City of Kiryas Joel to say something about what's happening in South Blooming Grove, it will not come through official channels.

This is where we need to take a slight detour.

If it was me and I had a rival setting up shop in my backyard with the explicit goal of taking over? I'd pull a Walter White and tell them to stay out of my territory. But I guess that's why I fight with people on Facebook, and others are like, "BJ, why are you always fighting with these people?"

I'll tell you why: If you don't fight for what you have, you'll lose everything. So, I fight for every inch that I have. I encourage you to do the same.

This lesson has repeatedly played out in Southern Orange County, Rockland County, and Sullivan County for over 50 years. However, sometimes there are attempts to fight. Here in Monroe, over those 50 years, we've seen Save Monroe, Preserve Monroe—not the new Maureen Richardson Version; I'm talking the OG Preserve Monroe—and United Monroe, among others.

Usually, these groups lose because they're far more interested in telling you what they don't want versus what they do want.

For example, United Monroe didn't want Harley Doles and didn't want the Town to own the Movie Theater. But United Monroe had no plan to govern. You can see that based on the nearly decade-long fiscal malfeasance of Mussolini, Monroe Town Supervisor Tony Cardone, where taxes just went up almost 11% for 2025 while the Town offers fewer and fewer services, and every department is understaffed and underbudgeted except for Mr. Cardone's salary of course, which has only gone up and up. Right now it sits at roughly $186,000 a year.

So sometimes, when I hear people say, "We tried to fight and we lost, so why bother?" I roll my eyes at them because there are few, but not many, groups who actually know how to fight. Telling people, "No, we don't want this," may get you elected like it did with Cardone — or Luciani and Luongo in Woodbury — but just look at how Cardone rotted out the Town of Monroe from the inside, and you'll understand why these groups never truly succeeded: Because they don't know what they want.

One more example: People will complain about the Satmar getting Medicaid. I have no problem with this.

Do you want to know why? Because 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Four out of ten Americans have medical debt. Half of all Americans cannot afford any healthcare at all. A third of all Americans do not have any doctor at all, which in turn fuels myths like the anti-vaxxer movement because, without a doctor, people are getting their health information on Facebook. And as we just talked about with the drones, Facebook isn't interested in giving you the truth. It's only interested in keeping you on their platform, consequences be damned.

One more statistic, just to bring home this point: You're twice as likely to die from not having medical insurance than you are from a gunshot wound in America, with 68,000 people a year dying from a lack of medical coverage.

What does this have to do with the Satmar getting Medicaid? Everything. We're too busy fighting with each other over who is getting what instead of fighting together for Medicare for All. That is a classic example of what we don't want ("No handouts for the Satmar!") instead of looking forward and asking for what we do want ("Univeral medical coverage for everyone.")

And before you say that's impossible, let me remind you that right now, here in New York, there is a bill in the Assembly and Senate that would create a Universal Health Insurance Plan for everyone. Wealthy politicians who enjoy taking corporate money like James G. Skoufis are keeping this bill buried in committee, but the bill does exist. (You'll note that Mr. Skoufis is not a co-sponsor of S04840.)

You have to demand that the Assembly and Senate pass this bill.

I promise you that if the amount of people who complain about the Satmar getting Medicaid, Food Stamps, Section 8, all of that stuff actually spent more time fighting for bills like this, then you'd have nothing to complain about. This is common ground in terms of what we all want, and in most cases, need.

Make sense? Let's get back to New Windsor.

South Blooming Grove is not getting water from New Windsor. They are not getting sewage from New Windsor. South Blooming Grove and Kiryas Joel are not the same entity.

Mr. Stern and friends have implied or otherwise alluded to having access to New Windsor's sewage capacity, but the Supervisor of New Windsor, Stephen Bedetti, has emphatically denied this to me on multiple occasions.

Here's what you need to know regarding New Windsor: The City of Kiryas Joel gets up to 500,000 gallons of water from New Windsor under an agreement approved in 2019. The City of Kiryas Joel is currently requesting another 500,000 gallons, which they have a right to do so under that 2019 agreement.

At this time, the New York State Department of Health has not ruled on Kiryas Joel's request for the additional 500,000 gallons. Based on how the NY DOH has conducted itself concerning South Blooming Grove — giving them a pass on basically everything Mr. Stern wants — Don't be surprised if Kiryas Joel gets that extra water eventually. That said, we have reached out to the New York State Department of Health for comment about the status of this request.

Now, and this is important, the 2019 agreement only allows up to a million gallons of water. That's it. So, barring any new agreement between New Windsor and Kiryas Joel, that's all the water Mr. Szegedin is getting. (The Town of Windsor seems pretty dead set on not allowing any further agreement with the City of Kiryas Joel, but that’s just an impression I have from speaking with the Supervisor.)

Ok. This article turned out to be way longer than I thought. So I am going to stop here and post the rest of it tomorrow.

We’ll see you then.