Bloggers vs. Journalists and Monroe's Short Term Rental Plague Continues
Part one of our two-part coverage of the latest Town of Monroe Board meeting train wreck.
There’s a lot happening in the Town and Village of Monroe right now. Today, we’re going to focus specifically on last week’s Town Board meeting, held on Monday, June 3rd.
I’m going to split this post into two parts today.
This is because I think I can cover the Short Term Rental applicants (13 Ruby Road, 21 Front Street, 649 Lakes, 8 Keith Lane, ect.) in one post.
Then, in the follow-up post, we’ll cover the WTBQ invoice situation (again.)
Before we get into it, I just want to flag something for you:
There seems to be some confusion, caused mostly by bad faith actors like Mr. Wayne Corts and friends — including the wife of Wayne’s fellow defendant above, Teresa Schaeffer — about whether or not yours truly is a blogger or a journalist.
This is not the first time (I’ve been told) this has come up. Recently there was a meeting of environmentally inclined residents. One of them wanted to invite me to an upcoming Zoom, and then they were told I’m not a reporter.
So I’m going to address this real quick, and then we’re never going to speak about it again.
By way of disclosure, you should know Mrs. Schaeffer’s husband has done work for property owned by Mr. Corts, and found himself in some legal trouble.
So, when I started digging into the Falkirk Golf Course situation (Mr. Corts is again acting as a front man to turn the golf course into condos for the haredi in Woodbury), Mrs. Schaeffer took exception and got personal.
Why you would pick a fight with a journalist is beyond me. But here we go:
I’m a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Authors Guild. I am also a published author with St. Martin’s Press (“Social Media Is Bullshit”), and a smaller UK publisher, Curious Reads (“Privacy: And How We Get It Back.”) I’ve also ghost wrote two books, one of which went on to be a best seller in its business category.
Before COVID, I was also a world-renown public speaker and marketing consultant. You name the media outlet, and the odds are good you can find me quoted in there if you do an archive search between 2012 and 2020.
How world-renowned? I once followed Hillary Clinton after she gave a presentation at the New Orleans Convention Center.
In other words, I am way more qualified than some of the people out there, who are bringing you your local news.
(Go ahead and look up the background of your other local news reporters, and then go and look at mine.)
So, yes. I’m a journalist.
You can safely shout that at the top of your lungs and be factually accurate every time you do so.
I also am a former writer for The Albany Times Union, CNN.com, MTV, The Observer, and a legion of media outlets so long that I’ve probably forgot all of them because I’ve been freelancing for media outlets since 2008.
I got my start with CBS College Sports in 2007 or so, and before working professionally, I was also an editor for my college newspapers (The Racquette, The Tor Echo), and at Monroe-Woodbury.
I literally don’t know what else to say on this subject, other than maybe, ask your preferred local news reporters how many books they’ve published, I guess.
Put another way: If I’m not a journalist, I dare you to find someone who is.
To which someone may say, “Yeah. But you don’t work for The New York Times.”
Which brings us to this simple fact:
The Media is Dying, and You Live In a News Desert
All because I’m posting here on Substack instead of a “regular” media outlet has more to do with the fact that media outlets across America are dying. In fact, the media industry as we know it is currently suffering an extinction level event.
There are no “regular” media outlets to work for anymore.
In Southern Orange County, in terms of media jobs, you can get paid $45 an article for Straus News, or you can eat out of a garbage can.
Those are your choices.
You have what’s called “Legacy Media” (think: CNN, The New York Times, ect.) and then very little else.
For Southern Orange County, with a few exceptions, your “major” media outlets are The Times Herald-Record, which is basically a ghost at this point, and The Photo-News, whose quality of reporting should be taken with a grain of salt given stuff like this.
Or how about this VERY MISLEADING headline.
Or even the Town meeting I’m about to cover here, where it looked like they were implying Councilwoman Maureen Richardson was the cause of the lack of bipartisanship at the June 3rd meeting.
I’m taking the time to address this because nothing Mr. Cort’s (paid?) schills are saying, or will say in the future, or any other bad faith actor, isn’t true.
The only accurate thing Mrs. Schaeffer stated was my age. Yes. I did just turn 41.
(Interesting that Mrs. Schaeffer would criticize someone for living with their parents given this court case. Sounds like someone’s projecting.)
Although if we’re being honest, I’d like to think I’m really 38 because the pandemic years don’t count. But that’s just me.
Everything else was inaccurate bullshit, but that’s to be expected from people associated with Mr. Corts. (More on him real soon.)
Whether or not "BJ lives here” is also irrelevant, as I pointed out when Mrs. Hawxhurst tried that same stupid manuever at a Town of Monroe Board meeting.
Where I live doesn’t change the facts.
Where I live doesn’t change the shitty local politicans Southern Orange County is rife with.
The Monroe Gazette is a media outlet no different than The Photo-News or Times Herald-Record, and I’m just as qualified a journalist (probably over qualified) as anyone else reporting in our area.
But more importantly, comments like this are an attempt to disguise a much larger problem that impacts all of us.
You live in a news desert.
So, anyone who wants to stick their head out of the sand, which is something I encourage, and start their own local news outlet is going to here this nonsense about being a “blogger” and not a journalist.
Don’t buy it.
I encourage more people to start local media outlets. We are in desperate need of better news coverage than what we’re getting here in Southern Orange County.
All because you don’t work for a “real” media outlet doesn’t mean dick in 2024.
There aren’t many “real” media outlets left.
But there’s plenty of fake people on Facebook.
The Short Term Rental Plague Continues: 13 Ruby Road, 21 Front Street, 649 Lakes, 8 Keith Lane, ect.
I gotta be honest, I don’t know what more can be said on this issue. That’s why I rolled the four STR applications discussed at this board meeting into this post.
The Town of Monroe (Cardone-Houle-Scancarello) continues to entertain these applications for Short-term rentals despite:
Short-term rentals verifiably turn healthy communities into Zombie Towns.
Orange County Sewer District 1 is overcapacity in terms of Monroe. So authorizing any STR is irresponsible right now.
And yet here we are. Another Town of Monroe meeting where SRTs are being discussed.
The lawyer and/or applicant gets up for the STR and tells you everything is great, the residents around the STR complain, and around and around we go.
Enough already.
The Supervisor should authorize an immediate halt to any STR rental applications because of the sewage issue.
Period. Full stop.
The fact that this dance continues at every meeting is insulting to residents and environmentally dangerous.
You could have also saved an hour of everyone’s time had the Board did the responsible thing and said, “No STRs until the sewer situation is resolved. See you all in 3-5 years.”
All of the above equally applies to proposed zoning changes or any sort of new construction. We’re over sewer capacity. Get to the back of the line.
As it stands now, you can watch an entire Mets game in the time it takes for the Town of Monroe to complete a board meeting. And that’s before you take into account recent changes like the pitch clock.
Now, a Mets game is far shorter than your average Town of Monroe Board meeting.
Shutting down the plague of Short-term rental applications can shorten these meetings and immediately improve the quality of life for long time residents.
The fact that these applications haven’t been shut down by the sewage issue represents a failure on the part of the Supervisor to look after, yet again, the best interests of the people he was elected to serve.
Ditto with Houle and Rubber Stamp Sal.
We’ll return later today with coverage of the second part of this meeting.