Dorey Houle Continues to Willfully Endanger Lives of the People She Represents
A look at how the person who wants to be your next Town of Monroe Supervisor, and others, have completely failed you with their behavior during the Jennings Creek Fire emergency.
Above: Photo of the Jennings Creek Fire, taken and shared by the New York State Park Police.
What made this newsworthy is that Mrs. Houle, as deputy town supervisor, has access to the Town of Monroe’s Constant Contact email list and Facebook Page. She was also clearly aware of the fire emergency.
The following was posted on her personal Facebook Page, and not the Town of Monroe’s, concerning the West Mombasha Brush Fire on Saturday.
Despite what it says in Mrs. Houle’s post, the West Mombasha Brush Fire has since re-ignited and she has made no update, either on her own page or on behalf of the Town, concerning the fire’s status and its potential to spread because of the drought conditions.
Instead, Town of Monroe residents were again dependent on a brave volunteer firefighter to provide up-to-the-minute information concerning a fire within the Town of Monroe’s borders. From yesterday:
At the time of this writing on Wednesday afternoon, the West Mombasha Road Fire is not a threat to public safety, and according to sources, it is currently under control. That’s great news, but without rain in the forecast until at least Monday, the threat of its reignition looms.
That’s why I’m telling you about this.
If there was no threat, there would be no story.
But given the current weather conditions, we must remain vigilant and need our elected officials to guide us. Especially when these fires can pop up and spread quickly with the drought and dry conditions.
So far, some of them can’t even be bothered to do that. Here’s a quick look at what they’re doing instead:
Above: State Senator James Skoufis, Dorey Houle’s opponent in last week’s election for New York State Senator, seen here posing for a photo with campaign donor, and South Blooming Grove’s other de facto mayor, Isaac Ekstein. Mr. Ekstein has previously contributed $15,000 to Mr. Skoufis’s 2022 campaign for State Senator.
Mr. Ekstein and Mr. Joel Stern recently purchased a brand new fire truck for their new fire department. The truck is often parked at Mr. Ekstein and Mr. Stern’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove headquarters. Neither man has replied to clarify if the truck was dispatched to the Jennings Creek Fire, nor have they clarified whether or not South Blooming Grove Fire Department 1 was sent either.
Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein’s Blooming Grove EMS was sent despite concerns about its members' qualifications, the cease-and-desist letter concerning the use of the name Blooming Grove EMS, and its certification status with the New York State Department of Health. I’m sure Mr. Skoufis brought all of this to Mr. Ekstein’s attention just prior to this photo being taken.
Below: Woodbury Town Supervisor, Kathryn Luciani (second left) poses for photos with State Assemblyman Brabenec (who inexplicably ran unopposed for yet another term in the State Assembly), Senator Skoufis (far left), the Warwick Supervisor, and the Mayor of Greenwood Lake.
We’ve also covered Dorey Houle’s knowledge of an oil spill at Lake Mombasha — that could have impacted the drinking water of over 20,000 people, including every single Village of Monroe resident — and her total lack of communication about the oil spill to both the Village of Monroe residents and Town of Monroe residents. (Mrs. Houle has also expressed no concerns about the City of Kiryas Joel’s Salt Shed, which is currently still positioned over the Town of Monroe’s aquifer.)
And, until the fires, we covered Mrs. Dorey Houle’s biggest failure: the lack of action or communication to the public about a poisonous gas that the area’s children at Airplane Park routinely breathe in.
So at this point, if you see someone telling you on Facebook that Mrs. Houle would make a great Town of Monroe Supervisor, or that she’s serving her community and looking out for the health and safety of its residents, those people are showing their ass.
Forgive them, but don’t forget them.
Because now you know who’s going to have your back when shit hits the fan around here, and who won’t.
And it definitely ain’t the people using a major forest fire, one being fought by volunteers, to pose for photos and show you how much they “care” about you.
They don’t.
If they did care about you, they wouldn’t be posing for photos.
You know what they’d be doing?
They wouldn’t be saying stuff like this, from the current Town of Monroe Supervisor:
During times like this, we are reminded of what it means to be a community that comes together to support those in need. On behalf of the Town Board, thank you for your kindness. Please continue to keep those who answer the call to serve and protect in your prayers.
You figure with the ongoing gun violence epidemic, a lot of people would have learned by now that thoughts and prayers are nice, but thoughts and prayers don’t do much to change anything either.
If Mr. Cardone, and the other people we’ve discussed in today’s story, cared about you, they’d be loudly advocating for Orange County to abandon the volunteer model and ensure that our firefighters and other first responders are well compensated for their time and trouble.
Especially given the ongoing recruitment crisis and dwindling number of volunteers these providers have. (Or are we all pretending that story from last year somehow went away?)
THAT is a crisis. And none of these people photographed have a solution to offer you. Just prayers, vibes, and little to no information on the status of the actual fires.
And they’re not alone.
In looking at some of the people cheerleading Mrs. Houle this weekend, we also need to take stock of those willing to stand up and put their community first and not their favorite politician, and those who don’t.
It doesn’t matter if that’s the wannabe Town of Monroe Supervisor or the President of the United States. The community comes first.
Ditto with anyone telling you the Town of Monroe doesn’t need an emergency plan — Yes, people said that — and that the Town of Monroe doesn’t need to disseminate any information concerning the fires, despite one happening on its border, because the public can get that news for themselves on Facebook. Yes. They really said that too.
(We also got some Climate Change deniers in the mix, but it’s 2024 and it’s almost unanimous that those people are dumb and can safely be ignored.)
52, 434 People Can Be Wrong, Are Wrong
A lot of people voted for Dorey Houle for State Senate: 52,434 of them across Orange County.
How much of that was driven by an intense dislike for Senator James G. Skoufis versus overwhelming support for Mrs. Houle is hard to say.
Many, if not all, of these people living in Monroe, however, will likey again vote for Houle for Town Supervisor.
(I am VERY curious to know how people feel, who voted for Skoufis, about his support for Dorey Houle as the next Monroe Town Supervisor. The arrangement, as described by people close to both Houle and Skoufis, is that in exchange for Dorey not running against Skoufis for a third time, he’d lend his support to her campaign for Town Supervisor. Both Mrs. Houle and Mr. Skoufis declined to respond to comments about this arrangement. Mr. Skoufis has a standing policy not to reply to inquiries from The Monroe Gazette because he’s afraid if he does, it’ll tear a hole in the space-time continuum.)
Our job now is to organize and ensure that Mrs. Houle doesn’t win the Supervisor role and loses re-election for her seat on the Town Board.
Achieving both things will mean that Houle and Cardone are gone, giving Monroe the first real shot at substantial, meaningful change.
The first real opportunity for that in a decade.
Wouldn’t it Be Nice For Monroe To Be Normal Again?
Right now, you have Mary Bingham and Maureen Richardson as Town Councilwoman, but they are in the minority on the Board. With Houle and Cardone gone, that changes things.
(Slippery Sal Scancarello could be gone sooner than you think too, depending on how that court case goes involving his assault charges.)
I doubt Houle is gone forever if she loses. Like Tyler Etzel Jr., James Freiband, and John U. Keleman in Woodbury, Mrs. Houle is a career politician with nothing better to do and plenty of other people’s money to spend. But getting rid of her and Cardone is transformative for the Town of Monroe.
Even if she tries, like Etzel and Keleman, to make a comeback. (This attempt is inevitable. As I’ve said before, Etzel and Keleman will absolutely try to come back. You should also be on the lookout for Trustee Fabbro, assuming he escapes the Ethics Committee, claiming credit for every positive thing the Woodbury Village Board does between now and his own re-election bid.)
A defeat for Mrs. Houle and Mr. Cardone this fall means a lot. It means …
It’s the end of United Monroe forever — all those United Monroe goons on the Ethics Board will be removed.
It’s the end of Der Fuhrer and these two-hour slogs of a meeting with very limited public comment at the end. (The meetings take forever because Cardone is too busy trying to bully and harass Councilwoman Richardson and intimidate Councilwoman Bingham.)
It’s the end of Brian Nugent as the Town Attorney for all the reasons explained here.
It’s the end of Pat Patterson successfully sexually harassing a former Town employee and getting a raise instead of a pink slip.
It’s the end of Valerie Bitzer, the illegal 90-day FOIL policy (since reversed), and other numerous attempts to obstruct public access to information.
It’s the end of the constant bullying by the Town of its neighboring municipalities and Villages.
You tell me, doesn’t that sound like a better, more functional Monroe? Why should the Village of Woodbury be the only functioning democratic institution in our area?
Some FAQs I’m Getting …
A lot of you have questions, so I’m going to try to answer them quickly:
-What’s going on with Der Fuhrer (current Town of Monroe Supervisor, Tony Cardone)?
I can’t ethically tell you.
What I can suggest is that, if you’re curious, Town of Monroe residents can ask Supervisor Cardone at the next Town meeting if he’s well enough to complete his current term in office, let alone run for another one. You can also call or email him, but as we’ve demonstrated repeatedly here at The Monroe Gazette, Mr. Cardone rarely answers his emails from residents.
Your best bet is to corner him at an upcoming meeting during public comment.
He’ll probably have a temper tantrum and shut down public comment — he’s done that before when someone says something he doesn’t like— but if you want to get an answer, that’s the way to do it.
He doesn’t need to disclose anything. I won’t disclose anything because it’s inappropriate to do so—all he needs to do is answer a simple yes or no question for you:
Are you well enough to complete the rest of your term as Supervisor?
This is an entirely fair question for you to ask your Town Supervisor, given that he makes nearly $200,000 and acts as a de facto dictator in all of his interactions with Town employees and neighboring municipalities.
It’d be a different story if Mr. Cardone governed in such a way where everyone on the Town Board was treated as an equal member, but that’s not the case. He’s publicly, for years, and very adamantly, for years, has loudly declared that he’s in charge.
So, unfortunately, Mr. Cardone’s health is a matter of public interest given those circumstances.
But this is, again, without getting into it, the reason Mrs. Houle is running for Town Supervisor next Fall.
-What jackass said the Town of Monroe doesn’t need an emergency plan?
More people than you’d think. But here’s the bottom line: Climate Change is here.
This is real. It’s happening. And it would be best if you prepared for it now, because if you think things are bad now with the weather, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
We’re going to get a lot more rain, and we’re ALSO going to get longer periods of hot, dry weather. This includes longer periods of drought like we’re experiencing right now.
So, if you think the Jennings Creek Fire is a one-off and we’ll never see anything like it again, every scientist on this planet thinks you’re a fool. We hope never to see something like this again.
We will be very lucky if we never see anything like this again.
But hope is not a strategy.
To not have an Emergency Response plan to deal with the floods (like we saw on Lakes Road last year) or the fire (like we’re seeing right now) is to willfully endanger the lives of every single resident of this community.
The Town of Monroe has no such plan. Has made no effort to form such plan, and Mr. Cardone and Mrs. Houle have been in power long enough, across various positions, to have advocated for, and created, such a plan.
Both have failed to do so.
Every municipality in Southern Orange County needs an Emergency Response Plan. For fires. For flood. For extreme drought. For whatever the hell a Snowicane is.
Not just Monroe. But in Monroe, the need is a bit more glaring since there’s literally a fire happening within its borders right now as I write this.
Will it spread? We hope not! Can it spread? Yes it can!
So don’t you think it’s a good idea to be ready just in case?
Why Does The Town Have To Keep Us Informed When The News Is Online?
Facebook is not real life.
It’s also one of the primary methods used by the Russians, and their useful idiots on both the Left (Jill Stein) and the Right (Trump) to spread dangerous propaganda. The Chinese have TikTok, the Russians have Twitter, Facebook, and its associated apps like Instagram and WhatsApp.
I think First Due Weather From The Compound (FDW) is a great resource.
But it has the same problem as The Monroe Gazette: It’s just one person.
And in the case of FDW, it’s the only community resource providing real time information on the status of the fires right now.
So if something were to happen to FDW? Thousands of us would be shit out of luck right now in terms of getting information on the fires.
Unfortunately, we live in a local news desert. I can’t even begin to help fix that. What I do is like a drop in the bucket. If I’m lucky, enough people read this and take action, like they just did in Woodbury.
If I had the money, I’d pay for advertising and start to address that. But I don’t.
So if you’re wondering why it’s such a big deal that Mrs. Houle decided only to update her friends and voters, and nobody else, about the status of the fire on Saturday, that’s why.
Because you cannot, and should not, be entirely dependent on Facebook to get your news and information.
Mrs. Houle could have, and should have, updated the Town website, the Constant Contact email list, and yes the Town Facebook Page too. The point here is that the information concerning the status of the fires should have been communicated across as many different forms of media as possible, across as many different types of channels as possible, exactly because we live in a news desert.
There is no local media infrastructure in Southern Orange County. You have these little satellites of hope, and not much else.
You can’t assume, like some people have, that people will just “go online to get their news.”
Get their news from where exactly? That’s exactly how this country just found itself voting for someone who will raise prices on their groceries through tariffs because they thought grocery prices were too high right now.
America has a problem when it comes to where to get its information from. That’s not a Democrat or Republican thing. That’s an American thing, and you should be worried about it.
The Photo-News isn’t covering the fire. The Record barely exists, although to their credit, there is some fire coverage.
The Monroe Gazette doesn’t cover real-time fire updates because I am literally drowning in stories right now that I need to investigate and report on. I’m an investigative reporter covering local politics. I’m not a beat reporter. I can do one or the other, not both.
So we’re all dependent on this person on Facebook to update us instead of our elected officials, and that’s a scary thought.
Especially since 2023 was the hottest year on record, with 2024 on pace to beat that record.