Don't Count on Scott Ugell to Save The Day in South Blooming Grove
A quick follow-up about the insane South Blooming Grove story where there is no duly elected mayor, and everything the Village has done since March is (technically speaking) null and void.
Pictured Above: Scott Ugell (on the right) making an increasingly rare appearance at a South Blooming Grove Village Board meeting back in October of this year.
Our local news round-up was rudely interrupted by yet another insane story created by Joel M. Stern and Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein in South Blooming Grove. You can catch up on that story here. We’ll have the other stories I was supposed to share after Christmas.
For now, here’s an update on what’s happening in South Blooming Grove.
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I’ve been in touch with the New York State Board of Elections, which said the responsibility to hold local elections falls entirely on the South Blooming Grove Village Clerk, Kerry “I Didn’t Get Your Email” Dougherty. The Orange County Board of Elections echoed this. They, too, have no involvement with Village elections in South Blooming Grove.
The New York State Board of Elections also mentioned that Village residents should discuss this issue — you know, the whole not having a duly elected mayor thing — with South Blooming Grove’s Village Attorney, Sleepy Scott Ugell.
Good Luck With That Shit.
Mr. Scott Ugell is often missing from Village of South Blooming Grove meetings, inaccessible by both phone and email, and has his own legal problems. (When confronted about his attendance record, Mr. Ugell will say that’s not true and he rarely misses a meeting, but all you need to do is review this year’s archive of Village Board meetings filmed by Preserve Blooming Grove to see he’s missed way more meetings than he claims.)
As a reminder to our readers in Rockland County, Mr. Scott Ugell was a former Justice in Clarkstown but resigned in disgrace in exchange for not facing any further penalties or criminal charges by the New York State Court Commission.
It’s unclear what Mr. Scott Ugell does for the Village of South Blooming Grove, aside from drawing an expensive salary.
No-Show Jobs Rampant in South Blooming Grove
To give you a couple of examples, first, there was Dov Guttman. Mr. Guttman, until the 2025 budget, received a $92,000-a-year salary from Mr. Joel Stern for what was essentially a no-show job running the village transportation department. Mr. Stern has since cut the department and the buses and bragged about the savings in his most recent Yiddish-language United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove newsletter.
The only way to get any official information about what’s happening in South Blooming Grove is to read Mr. Stern’s UJCBG newsletter, once again demonstrating that his local hate group is inseparable from the actual operations of the Village, meaning they should be subject to FOIL. That’s something I very much intend to ask a judge to decide on in 2025. In the video below, almost entirely in Yiddish in German and recorded back in 2021, you can hear Mr. Stern (on the left) and Mr. Ekstein (on the right) — the de facto rulers of South Blooming Grove since 2021 — routinely share their intention to drive out “the goyim” and use the law to do so:
Publishing official village news, exclusively in a Yiddish language newsletter, released by an unrelated not-for-profit, is also discriminatory toward secular residents who don’t read or understand Hebrew and Yiddish, and they should file a complaint about it with the New York State Attorney General’s Division of Human Rights.
Also, Mr. Stern didn’t tell our Haredi brothers and sisters that the $300,000 or so that he “saved” for them went instead to the $600,000 the Village expects to spend on trucked-in water in 2025. That would bring the amount of water trucked in, precisely because of Mr. Joel M. Stern and Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein’s mismanagement of the Village since 2021 at nearly $2M. Mr. Stern routinely blames “previous administrations” in the pages of his UJCBG newsletter, but this water situation was only a problem under previous administrations. It’s a full-blown emergency now, and he is solely responsible for it.
So, and this is a point I want to stress: Mr. Joel M. Stern lies to everyone, Haredi and non-Haredi alike.
It’s wrong to think of our Haredi brothers and sisters as some big blob. No. There are people at the top, like any segment of society, and those on the top take advantage of the people at the bottom, regardless of their language and culture. We’ll return to this point at the end of this post.
Then you have Mr. Al Fusco Jr., who charges at least $100,000 but often misses meetings and, when he is there, refuses to identify himself to, and answer questions from, South Blooming Grove residents about Building and Code Enforcement issues that they raise. The exact thing he is getting paid all that money to do for the Village since South Blooming Grove contracts out their Building Department and Code Enforcement to his company, Fusco Engineering & Land Surveying D.P.C.
I believe, in 2025, just like with Tom Shepstone and the Shepstone Management company, that any municipality currently employing Al Fusco Jr. and Fusco Engineering — as well as anyone else who provides business and services to Mr. Joel Stern — should be made aware of what’s happening here and drop these companies from their municipal budgets. That is one thing South Blooming Grove, Blooming Grove, and Washingtonville residents can accomplish to establish that there are consequences for Mr. Shepstone and Mr. Fusco’s actions, or to be more specific, inaction.
Calls placed by Village Residents to the Village Building Department and Code Enforcement, operated by Fusco employees, go unanswered. Calls placed by Village residents to Fusco Engineering’s direct line at (845) 344-5863 are rarely returned.
For example, the Monroe Gazette called Fusco Engineering regarding Prospect Gardens. According to the residents who have contacted him, Mr. Fusco has received numerous complaints about the project dating back to October 9th, none of which he or his firm has responded to.
The major concern among Blooming Grove and South Blooming Grove residents is that the Prospect Garden project was supposed to build single-family homes on the site, but they’re now all duplexes. This is a story as old as time in Rockland, Orange, and Sullivan County. One thing gets approved, and another, usually much larger thing, is built instead. Building & Code Enforcement is nowhere to be found.
Mr. Fusco has ignored these residents’ concerns and complaints about how much water those duplexes will consume at Prospect Gardens. The village has a failing municipal water infrastructure that is under investigation by the State DEC and federal EPA.
(Mr. Stern has repeatedly denied that there was an EPA investigation into the Village of South Blooming Grove. A spokesperson with the EPA has confirmed to The Monroe Gazette that there is, in fact, an investigation. Not long after being corrected about this, Mr. Stern did away with public comment at South Blooming Grove Village Board meetings.)
On Monday, December 23rd, I was told by a Fusco Engineering representative—and I recorded the conversation—that it was unclear when Mr. Fusco would investigate the matter involving Prospect Gardens. A problem he has known about since early October.
Mr. Fusco has also ignored rampant code enforcement violations reported to him, leading to a potentially dangerous fire at 20 Dallas Drive.
That brings us back to Sleepy Scott Ugell …
In The Monroe Gazette’s Article 78 lawsuit against the Village of South Blooming Grove, a different law firm represents the Village, not Mr. Ugell. There are at least five known lawsuits against the Village, including ours, with at least two more coming in 2025. It’s unclear if Mr. Ugell represents the Village in any of them. So, if Mr. Ugell doesn’t represent the Village in court and can’t be bothered to attend meetings regularly, what exactly does Mr. Scott Ugell do for the Village of South Blooming Grove?
The Monroe Gazette is still investigating The Village of Airmont in Rockland County concerning allegations made in court by Mr. Scott Ugell’s former business partner, Brian T. Galperin. Mr. Galperin alleges Mr. Ugell, acting as the Village of Airmont’s attorney, used his influence to tank a project presented to the Village by RWE Solar Development LLC. Galperin claims Scott Ugell wanted the property, owned by Yechezlel Leider and located at 375 Route 59, for Ugell’s marijuana growing business. After stopping the battery storage project, Mr. Ugell, according to evidence submitted in the lawsuit between these two, told Mr. Galperin to reach out to Mr. Leider about the property, but not to use his (Ugell’s) name.
So let’s be clear: Galperin is alleging Ugell used his position in Airmont as their attorney to intentionally tank the RWE Solar battery storage project in an attempt to purchase the land himself, so that he can run his business on it. That would open up the Village of Airmont to a pretty serious lawsuit by RWE Solar Development if true. Despite having an acrimonious relationship with Ugell, we have talked to at least one witness in Airmont who stated Mr. Ugell, reached out and asked this person to help speak out against RWE Solar’s project in order to kill it.
I spoke with the New York State Judicial Conduct Committee, who told me the only way to re-open their investigation into Mr. Ugell is if he commits a crime. So, we here at The Monroe Gazette are also interested in discovering what happened with the property at 375 Route 59, and have recently submitted a large FOIL request with the Village of Airmont to get to the bottom of what happened there.
Not one to sit around, we also reported the latest South Blooming Grove situation to both the FBI and the New York State Division of Election Law Enforcement. There is absolutely zero chance that Mr. Ugell gets involved in this situation, and he did not reply to requests for comment when asked by The Monroe Gazette.
Residents of South Blooming Grove are encouraged to also file a complaint with the NYS Divison of Election Law Enforcement about the failure of Mrs. Kerry Dougherty to hold an election, as required by law in March of 2024, here.
Nobody Should Get Their Hopes Up. But …
Whenever our Satmar brothers and sisters get in trouble, someone from the New York State Democratic party (usually from the governor’s office) makes a call, and the problem vanishes. In fact, Mr. Stern bragged in the latest edition of the UJCBG about having direct access to the governor to speak about issues and challenges faced by Haredi leaders.
This, by the way, was also something that even Mr. Ugell stated to Mr. Galperin in the court case between them. Mr. Ugell allegedly claimed to Mr. Galperin that he regularly met with “the head rabbis” in Kiryas Joel on Friday mornings and that he said to Galperin that Haredi leaders are “able to make a call higher up the political food chain to make an issue go away.” That’s why I believe Mr. Ugell won’t be taking any action here concerning South Blooming Grove currently lacking a duly elected mayor.
I don’t doubt that will be the outcome here with South Blooming Grove — that someone from New York State’s Democratic party will intervene and bail out Mr. Stern — but it’s still worth reporting on all the same.
Why?
First, had there been an organized effort to defeat Mr. Stern’s meat puppet, George Kalaj, none of this would be happening. But there was no organized and concentrated effort to stop him. The previous administration has been described by multiple people we’ve talked to as overconfident concerning their chances of victory against Stern and Kalaj.
So a lot of what you see happening in South Blooming Grove was entirely preventable. In fact, I want to remind you all that while it’s unlikely New York State or the FBI will intervene in what’s currently happening in South Blooming Grove, they do still need to hold a mayoral election.
There are only 1,500 or so registered voters in South Blooming Grove. I bet you more than a few of those registered voters aren’t residents of the Village.
Remember: Mr. Ekstein participated in a scheme to register over 700 absentee ballots to an address he was residing at, 2 Arlington Drive, which the FBI may or may not still be investigating. Why do I say that? I asked Soft on Crime Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler for his records concerning the investigation, which he claims he handed over to the FBI. I asked the New York State Board of Elections for their documents concerning Mr. Ekstein’s absentee ballots, and they did not provide them citing that the ballots were still part of an active investigation.
So what I’m saying to you is, if you knock those fake registrants off the voter rolls, you get people knocking on doors, and you put out campaign literature in both Yiddish and Englsh showing that Mr. Stern has consistently wasted their money and has caused the taxes to go up, and you have a real shot to change the course of things in South Blooming Grove.
I’m not saying you will win, but I am saying you have a chance.
That is the good news.
The bad news is that it’s easier for people to say dumb shit like this on Facebook instead, which kills any possible momentum:
“Shit you can’t control” is wrong.
“Monroe-Woodbury is a done deal” is wrong.
“Palm Tree will be running shit” is wrong. It’s also a bigoted and inaccurate statement to make.
“Learn to live with it.” You know what I say to that attitude? Go fuck yourself.
The above comment came from someone who identified themselves as “a good friend” of the Village of Woodbury’s unelected Trustee, Rhonda Fabbro.
Here’s why it’s wrong: Woodbury, just in November, defeated two candidates backed by wealthy developer — and not an arsonist — Wayne Corts and at least two Haredi developers who wanted to develop the Falkirk Golf Course.
They lost.
So the idea of “you can’t win, so don’t try” was already decisively proven false.
This makes such statements by friends of Mrs. Rhonda Fabbro alarming. They are most likely saying this sort of thing in an effort to suppress the vote in November of 2025 because Mrs. Fabbro’s son, the actually elected Village Trustee Matthew Fabbro, is up for re-election.
This is a tactic used across Rockland, Sullivan, and Orange to suppress the vote. If you think nothing matters, then you won’t register to vote, you won’t vote, and you’ll tell other people to stay home. Then, when you do lose the election because nobody showed up to vote, you can just sit around and spread your bullshit antisemitic conspiracies about how “The Jews run everything.”
But let me tell you something: They don’t.
As a Jew, I can tell you that for a fact. We don’t run anything.
What the Satmar, to use South Blooming Grove and Woodbury as an example, have is influence. The influence comes from voter turnout.
Do you understand? So “You can’t win, so don’t bother” is a tactic used to suppress the vote. It’s not a statement on what is and isn’t inevitable.
It’s a statement meant to limit your influence.
What I’m saying to you is, you have more power than you think. You won’t win every time, but this idea that you can do nothing at all only supports the exact kind of thing we’re all fighting against — both Democrat and Republican, both Haredi and non-Haredi — that the wealthy are able to dictate the terms of how we all live.
You can do something about that. You can register to vote, right now. You can organize, right now. Because as I’ve said before: If people got organized across Rockland, Sullivan, and Orange County? You’d see shit change around here real fast. And the days of someone from the New York State Democratic Party being able to pick up the phone and stymie an investigation will be over.*
The choice is yours, of course. You can try, or you can complain on Facebook about how you think the Haredi get special treatment.
It’s up to you, but I know what I’m going to do.
*P.S. Historically, it’s been the Democrats, but you should know the City of Kiryas Joel School District exists specifically because of the suggestion of a Republican: George Pataki. Assemblyman Brian Maher, also a Republican, has done little to help residents in South Blooming Grove whom he represents. Crooked Orange County Executive — and local Dobby the House Elf impersonator — Steve Neuhaus has also done very little to intervene in this situation, despite the Orange County Department of Health becoming aware of the water situation in South Blooming Grove in 2023. So it’s not just Democrats. It’s just historically been Democrats that have intervened.