Has The Ghost of Harley Doles Possessed Monroe Town Supervisor Tony Cardone?

Anthony Cardone says "we will not go back to the days of my predecessors" but the truth is, we never left them.

On Monday, April 1st, 2024, during a Town of Monroe Board meeting, Supervisor Tony Cardone went on a long, rambling political rant from the dais. Something you are definitely not allowed to do.

Thanks to the vote of 2024 State Senate Candidate, and Monroe Town Councilwoman, Dorey Houle, Cardone was allowed to continue his unhinged megalomaniacal rant, despite the best efforts of Councilwomen Bingham and Richardson to stop him.

I’d like to take a few moments of your time to address this rant, because the Town of Monroe limits public comment to three minutes. Something that 83% of Towns and Villages in New York state DOES NOT DO, according to the New York Coalition For Open Government.

(Residents of Southern Orange County should ask themselves why Woodbury, Blooming Grove, and Monroe limit your time to speak when the rest of the state decidedly does not.)

In 3 minutes, I am not able to properly address this speech, its lies, and revisionist history. So I wrote this post instead.

But. Not everyone has a microphone of their own. So, as a reminder, the Town of Monroe Board meeting is tonight at 7pm at Town Hall, 1465 Orange Turnpike, Monroe, NY 10950.

I encourage you to attend and use your three minutes to say that enough is enough.

If you don’t, I fully expect that, as the walls close in on Mr. Cardone, that there will be more and more of this sort of behavior in the days and weeks ahead.

The people of Monroe deserve better. You deserve better.

You can watch the last gasps of this sad old dictator begin here:

The rant starts at 1:09:19.

Upon hearing Cardone’s incoherent mumblings, long time Monroe residents were instantly transported to the bad old days of Supervisor Harley Doles.

Cardone was elected to replace Doles on the promise of building sanity to Town Board meetings. He told The Photo-News when running for Supervisor:

“We need someone in the supervisor’s position who can bond the divisions and move toward uniting town,” Cardone said Wednesday, “a person with the ability to develop relations countywide instead of constantly degrading and fighting with our neighboring municipalities.”

But that never happened.

Before we get to why, here’s a fun flashback to what Town of Monroe meetings were like under Harley Doles:

Who Was Harley Doles?

Harley Doles was elected Monroe Town Supervisor in 2013 with the full assistance of the Satmar voting bloc. It was Doles who was able to obtain the assistance of hanhallah in overtaking the Monroe Town Board.

In a meeting with District Attorney Hoovler, the DA said to myself and Emily Convers in 2014 that Doles was “the most investigated man in Orange County.” But much like with South Blooming Grove, the DA never did anything about it.

Harley Doles moved to Monroe in 2004. Before becoming Supervisor, Doles was previously a Town of Monroe Councilman. He was appointed to the role in 2006 by Supervisor Sandy Leonard after Councilwoman Lori Currier Woods vacated the seat. In an interesting historical footnote, Doles was the lone Democrat on the board when appointed to the role.

During his time as Councilman, Doles opposed creating a justice court specifically focused on enforcing code violations. Something the Town and Village still struggles with today. He also pushed for consolidation of the fire and police departments as part of his re-election campaign for Town Board in 2007.

To reward Leonard for appointing him, upon becoming Supervisor, Doles made himself Acting Supervisor, allowing for both Leonard and himself to receive a salary for the same role. Leonard would retire from her role a year later in January of 2014.

And like current Town Acting Supervisor Dorey Houle, Harley Doles also ran an unsuccessful campaign for the State Senate District that represents all of Orange County in 2010.

For those of you reading this over in Blooming Grove and South Blooming Grove, when Harley Doles ran against Bill Larkin for the State Senate seat — A seat Larkin had a death grip on. Almost literally, Larkin retired from the New York State Senate at age 90 in 2018, and died a year later — can you guess who the biggest donor for Harley Doles’s State Senate campaign was?

Mendel Schwimmer.

The same Mendel Schwimmer who sued to dissolve the Village of South Blooming Grove alongside Jacob Gold, who would later become the second biggest investor in Keen Equities. During his time as a Town Councilman, Doles would actively support annexation efforts and other requests made by Zigmond Brach, who is today the largest shareholder in Keen Equities LLC.

During the 2010 campaign against Larkin, the dissident group sent out a deceptive flyer on behalf of Doles that implied Larkin was a supporter of Kiryas Joel.

In 2012, after former Supervisor Sandy Leonard and Councilman Rick Colon (who advocated for the purchase) acquired the movie theater in the Village, United Monroe was born. Erroneously, Doles would often be blamed for this purchase, but it was Leonard and Colon who made it happen.

I’m going to skip all the United Monroe stuff for the sake of brevity today. Just watch the movie:

In 2015, while all of the above was going on, Harley Doles hired part time security to be present at Monroe Town Board meetings. He often alleged that people were trying to kill him, but no evidence was ever found to support those claims. (I reported on that story many years ago and found that Doles’s frequent claims were not true. For example, Doles claimed former Councilman Jim Rogers attacked him during a Monroe Town Board meeting. In reality, Harley threw himself out of his chair and then said Jim was the one who did it.)

After losing control of the Monroe Town Board to Tony Cardone, Planning Board Secretary Kate Troiano was fired without notice in February of 2015. (Three years later, Cardone would appoint the unresponsive and unreachable Bonnie Franson as chair of the Monroe Town Planning Board.)

This firing by Cardone led to a lawsuit from the Teamsters Local 445. A year later, another Doles appointee to the Planning Board, would be removed from her position for improperly (maybe) assisting the developer BMG Monroe 1 LLC. Much like with Keen Equities, BMG Monroe 1 LLC was clearcutting land long before they had authorization to do so.

It should be noted that, in court, BMG Monroe 1 LLC is and was represented by Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, LLP. As I’ve pointed out numerous times before, this is the official law firm of hanhallah.

BMG’s listed address is 1600 63rd Street, which is a Brooklyn address we’ve covered a lot on here because … It belongs to Zigmond Brach, the largest shareholder of Keen Equities.

So, to be clear: BMG Monroe 1 LLC is Keen Equities LLC.

In 2016, Doles tried to re-invent himself as an opponent of accessory apartments in Monroe, which was something he had previously advocated for. But it was too late. Cardone and Mike McGinn won election to the Town Board with the help of the KJ Alliance and Town of Monroe voters. Together, they were able to defeat hanhallah’s voting bloc, which voted almost exclusively for Doles and friends. Doles would then take a medical leave of absence, which allowed for Cardone to be appointed Acting Supervisor. At that same meeting, Brian Nugent was appointed Town Attorney. Nugent would later become a donor to Tony Cardone’s political action committee.

One of Dole’s final acts in office was to steal the furniture the Town had provided him. He would later return it after an investigation by Village Police. There was also an incident where Cardone called the police on Harley Doles, much like Cardone did to Councilwoman Richardson earlier this year.

Harley Doles would die from a heart attack on July 6th, 2018

Councilman Tony Cardone, in the Fall of 2017, ran unopposed for Harley’s old job.

Now Let’s Talk About Tony Cardone’s Rant

Who could possibly sit and listen to the incompetency mixed with the manipulations and downright cruelty exhibited by you, Harley, and your fellow board members? It's only a matter of time before the jig is up.

- Emily Convers, in a letter to The Photo-News about Harley Doles.

In November of 2015, Cardone said to The Photo-News that election to get on the Town Board was “great for the spirit of the town that has been decimated for so long” by what he called a lack of respect on the part of the town board. “The community is at odds with itself” said Cardone.

First, let’s talk about Cardone’s faint praise for Councilwoman Bingham, whom you may remember, —despite now being called “the water guru” — was intentionally not nominated to be on the Moodna Sewer District Board by Cardone in January. Councilwoman Bingham, like Tony Cardone, was voted into office with the support of United Monroe. In 2017, when Bingham ran for office and Cardone ran (unopposed) for Supervisor, United Monroe’s Emily Convers told The Photo-News:

Convers described Bingham as “highly competent and even-keeled” who will bring a wealth of experience from her time on the town’s Planning Board and Conservation Commission.

Cardone apparently forgot this. And decided to punish Bingham because Bingham spoke up about the appointment of 2024 State Senate Candidate, Dorey Houle, to the role of Acting Supervisor despite Houle’s relative inexperience and involvement in an upcoming political contest this Fall.

As we’ll see, Cardone has a long history of using his role as Town Supervisor to retaliate against his enemies.

During Cardone’s unhinged political rant, Councilwoman Richardson and Bingham voted to censor Cardone and stop him from sharing more of his incoherent attempts at revisionist history.

Sal Scancarello, who rubber stamps all of Supervisor Cardone’s WTBQ invoices despite the Supervisor already getting a travel stipend, did not support the motion. Nor did Dorey Houle, demonstrating yet again that a vote for Houle is a vote for Cardone in the New York State Senate.

The citizens of Monroe can be assured that Tony Cardone and Mike McGinn will never put personal or political ambition above our desire to serve the common good of those that have entrusted us their votes and a hope for better tomorrow for our town. - Campaign promise made by Tony Cardone, September of 2015

Later, Houle would lie and state Town Council members were advised to limit their online activity and only comment during Town Board meetings. Unfortunately for Dorey, I’m a reporter, and I’ll be speaking to the Association of Towns to point out that this statement, like so many others from her, is false. To this day, Dorey Houle has not answered questions about the nature of a role created for her by Supervisor Cardone in 2023 to serve as the “NYS Senate Liaison.”

Cardone continued his wheezing, claiming that Councilwoman Richardson took credit for 2022 and 2023 Town accomplishments. Of course, he did not mention any specifics.

Nor did Cardone mention his efforts to sell town land on Rye Hill Road to developer Neil Gold. A move that gave rise to Preserve Monroe and the landslide election victory secured by Councilwoman Richardson in November of 2023.

Cardone, like any dictator, creates his worst enemies. His action led to the creation of Preserve Monroe. His action against me at The Photo-News resulted in The Monroe Gazette being created.

Good leaders do not create enemies, they work with them, just like Abraham Lincoln did when he assembled his presidential cabinet.

• We will work to restore common sense, good-government practices and transparency to the Town Board. - Campaign promise of Tony Cardone, made in September of 2015

Cardone, it should be noted, made very public efforts to support the creation of Gold’s proposed dinosaur park. He is currently obstructing foil requests for emails and text messages sent to Mr. Gold about the sale of this property.

State Senate Candidate Dorey Houle also supported the project, although she has since revised history and stated she fiercely opposed it. Given that she received funding from a supporter of the January 6th Insurrection and booster of 2020 Election myths, this shouldn’t be a surprise.

So, when Cardone says Richardson “took credit” for accomplishments made during those years when she was not on the board, he is trying to revise history to make it look like State Senate Candidate Dorey Houle was the one who took down the dinosaur park. She wasn’t.

Take back your town board and restore fiscal discipline, civility, and fair representation of all.

-Current Town of Monroe Ethics Board Member, and former United Monroe member, Michael Egan, urging voters to vote for Tony Cardone on October 15th, 2015

Then, he accused Richardson of “being caustic and toxic to this board.” Interesting coming from a guy who, since January, intentionally punished Mary Bingham for not supporting his pick for Acting Supervisor, used his position as Town Supervisor to punish William Brown Jr. for running against Cardone’s selected candidate James Patterson, and made verifiably false statements to the police.

Monroe Village Police refuse to comment about why they did not arrest Supervisor Cardone, despite him committing a crime and having recorded proof of said crime. It’s nice to be the Supervisor I guess.

Cardone then accused Richardson of making misleading and false statements. So, let’s talk about misleading and false statements for a moment. Supervisor Cardone, at the December 5th, 2023 Town Board meeting, made misleading and false statements concerning the Town’s coverage in The Photo-News. He was aware these statements were false because The Photo-News editor had corrected him on it. Then, on February 5th, 2024, Cardone made false statements when he claimed he was unaware of complaints and concerns raised by residents neighboring 649 Lakes Road, despite evidence (revealed through a FOIL) that demonstrated he was notified of the resident’s complaints.

This is part of a larger pattern of behavior, where Cardone asks Monroe residents to email him, and then he rarely (if ever) replies. We saw this pattern of behavior in action concerning the residents who live on Hawxhurst road, who notified the Supervisor repeatedly about the school buses, only to be ignored. (With one exception.)

Cardone accused Richardson of making false claims about everyone on the board. Really what he meant was, “False claims concerning State Senate Candidate, Dorey Houle.” It should be noted that, just this weekend, Dorey Houle was caught in another lie. The Town of Monroe put out the following statement, via email on Saturday, concerning the Preserve Monroe Tree contest I told you about a day earlier. There are two falsehoods to address here:

First, that the Monroe Conservation Committee did not approve the tree contest. They absolutely did. Mr. Dennis Fordham, like many who work or volunteer for the town, was bullied by Herr Cardone into giving a false statement.

Second, at the meeting where the contest was discussed, Conservation Commission member Donna McMahon observed Mrs. Houle enthusiastically supporting the tree contest, and pushing for it to be promoted through the Town’s Constant Contact newsletter above.

Cardone then claims that people are stopping him on the street and asking him, “What’s going on?” “Why aren’t you answering (Richardson) back?”

This may be true. But I think if people are going to stop the Town Supervisor and ask him questions it’s going to be about what’s going on near his house that nobody seems to know anything about:

They’d also ask about:

-The additional cost of garbage pickup with Marangi and why the Town doesn’t have a handle on the garbage situation.

-Why is Cardone so involved with the Somni relocation to a Town owned property in the Village of Monroe.

-The general state of Monroe’s roads with all the potholes.

-Why the Building Inspector and Code Enforcement don’t seem to do much of anything.

-And the numerous lawsuits Cardone got the Town into and how much it’ll cost to get out from under them.

One of which involves trying to revoke a designation of a historic landmark simply out of spite. It’s a long story, but the short version is that Pine Crest was designated by the Town Historian as a historic landmark. Cardone, for reasons still unknown, didn’t like that, and bullied the Historian into reversing this decision. He then attacked the Pine Crest project using his position as Town Supervisor, which led to a multimillion dollar lawsuit that the Town lost.

That’s just a short list.

There are many, many, many, more things the people of Monroe would stop and ask Supervisor Cardone about instead of Councilwoman Richarson.

Supervisor Cardone then brings up social media. So it’s important to point out here that Supervisor Cardone has forced organizations dependent on the Town, such as the Woodbury Animal Shelter, to employ “social media policies” to control the speech of employees and volunteers that he does not like.

At tonight’s meeting, you will hear Supervisor Cardone try the same tatic with Town Board members, since “social media policy” is an item on the agenda.

You should also know that Cardone had an off the record, in-person meeting with the publisher of The Photo-News. Days after that meeting, I was sent a social media policy that prohibited me from posting anything, anywhere online, as long as I wanted to write for The Photo-News.

Then, hilariously, after The Photo-News told Cardone they were enforcing a social media policy, he still told them via his official Town email that he refused to run Town advertising in the paper as long as I was writing for the paper.

Supervisor Cardone is obsessed with policing and restricting speech that he does not like. That’s not the actions of a town supervisor. That’s the actions of a fascist.

The Speech Continues

“Beginning in ‘16, we were elected to turn around the town.”

By we, Cardone means him and former councilman Mike McGinn.

You may remember that Cardone appointed McGinn to the ethics board in January of 2024, despite this being a clear conflict of interest. Former United Monroe representative and Tony Cardone booster, Mike Egan, is also a current member of the Ethics Board.

This action also helps explain why the Town of Monroe Ethics Board is functionally useless in matters filed against the Supervisor.

During the time I was involved with United Monroe, there were only two democrats: Myself and Emily Convers. Everyone else was a conservative Republican, or in the case of the racist butt cream guy, a libertarian. The Republicans loved Cardone.

Here’s what I can tell you: At the time, anyone was better than Harley Doles.

So, “we were elected to turn around the town” is superficially true. But it’s important to stress that Cardone was the least bad option, not the best.

Once I left and Emily Convers left … Well, you all know how things turned out for United Monroe and the geniuses left in charge of it.

Cardone then credits everyone he appointed as being responsible for the “turnaround.” To which I’m going to ask you all a simple question:

What turn around?

Seriously. Tell me. Because all I see are various lawsuits. The lack of code and building enforcement for short term rentals. The enrichment of Cardone himself at the expense of others, for example the residents living around Lake Sapphire. The dinosaur park. Using town resources to support Dorey Houle’s 2022 State Senate campaign, and then again giving her a made up NYS Senate liaison role when she lost, the lack of any police presence to reduce speeding on high traffic areas, the flooding of Lakes Road, the failing Moodna Sewer District and the millions it will cost to fix it.

There is no turn around.

The only thing that stopped was the screaming and yelling at the Town Board meetings, and that’s because most people ran for the hills after Cardone and United Monroe’s remnants sold them all out.

So I ask again, what turn around?

And I’ll ask you another question, my strange and interesting friends.

Cardone stated in his speech that Richardson alienated all these people, but here’s the thing: He’s actively restricted Richardson’s ability to do much of anything.

Cardone did this through the use of liaison assignments. Something the Town of Monroe has denied exists. Cardone has actively told town employees not to speak with Richardson. He has actively told commission members not to speak with her. All with the threat of “or else.” So, how is it that the Councilwoman can alienate all these people when Cardone doesn’t allow her to interact with any of them? In fact, it’s worth pointing out here that both Councilwoman Richardson and Councilwoman Bingham do not have any sort of office space at Monroe Town Hall, further restricting their ability to serve their constituents..

Here, we need to review the duties of Town Supervisor. Because it’s clear, like Harley Doles, Cardone believes being Supervisor makes you the boss. But that’s not what NY Town L § 125 (2022) states. The law says the Town Supervisor is basically there to make sure people get paid, to run the meetings, and make sure the Town’s money is being used responsibly. Of course, as you’ve seen, that’s not the case either.

The Town Supervisor in Monroe believes that he’s the boss. He’s not the boss. He’s a small, petty, venial little man who, for many years, abused his authority and got away with it.

And he’s not alone. In his defense, that description I just gave you could easily apply to South Blooming Grove Mayor George Kalaj, or former Woodbury Town Supervisor Frank Palermo. Or the former Chester Town Supervisor.

But now that Cardone is facing consequences, he’s becoming unglued. And like when Doles faced consequences, he’s lashing out.

Supervisor Cardone went on to state that “no one deserves that, period” when talking about Richardson’s alleged upsetting of town employees, once again taking a page from the MAGA playbook: Accuse others of the exact thing you’re doing.

Cardone then tried to imply that Councilwoman Richardson is somehow a puppet of Dan Burke, Gerry McQuade and Harley Doles. Doles isn’t around anymore, so that implication is false.

McQuade? He’s in witness protection. Can anyone say they’ve seen that man? He should give lessons to famed privacy expert, Michael Bazzell, on how to vanish off the face of the Earth.

And yes, Dan Burke does come and speak at the meetings. And yes, he does criticize Cardone at meetings. And yes, Dan Burke did vote to allow the annexation that triggered all those lawsuits and the eventual creation of Palm Tree.

But to imply that an 80 year old man is somehow puppeteering a 28 year-old woman is not only laughably false, it’s sexist.

The same sexist BS Cardone criticizes Doles of, concerning Doles’s treatment of Emily Convers and other women associated with United Monroe.

There is zero connection between Dan Burke and Councilwoman Richardson other than they both attend meetings of the local Democratic party.

But that’s sort of like me saying my brother is connected to a serial murderer because he works at the same prison the murderer is housed in.

Proximity doesn’t mean connection, in other words.

Getting to the end of this long, pointless, bloviating, sad whimper, Cardone accuses Richardson of not being transparent. But as these many FOILs have revealed, Cardone is lacking in the transparency department.

For a man claiming he’s transparent, it sure is interesting that tonight’s Monroe Town Meeting has an agenda item, not at all filled out, about the Freedom of Information Law and his intention to inhibit it as much as he legally can. Perhaps aided with legal advice by the Town Attorney facing a likely malpractice lawsuit in the not too distant future.

Cardone then calls Richardson a liar and then, in perhaps my favorite moment of cognitive dissonance ever captured on film, he lied.

LOL. WHUT?

No one should be punished by their municipal government because of their decision to vote for any candidate. - Racist Butt Cream guy John Allegro, November 4th, 2015, in speaking about Harley Doles and his supporters.

Richardson asked Cardone if he used his position as Town Supervisor to politically retaliate against William Brown Jr. Something we can verify as fact. He did. Cardone responded to the question by saying, “completely false” again lying to the people of this Town much like Doles would during meetings.

It goes on like this. And on. And on. But you get the point. So I’ll touch on one last thing before we close this out: Cardone keeps accusing Richardson of contacting the IBEW after the contract was closed. Something that did not happen.

He has become obsessed with this, and has brought it up at at least three Town Board meetings now. It will come up again tonight.

I think there are two reasons for this.

First, Cardone is trying to cover up a crime. He used his position as Town Supervisor to specifically punish William Brown Jr. for running against James Patterson, and made that reprisal against Brown Jr. part of the IBEW contract negotiation.

If the IBEW confirmed this to Richardson, then the Town and Cardone are in for a whole level of legal pain that they can’t even begin to comprehend, because you do not fuck with unions. And as I mentioned above, Cardone and the Town have previously fucked with unions like the Teamsters.

Second, Cardone wants to somehow paint Richardson as anti-union, which is funny, because she’s a Democrat, and as you all know, those Democrats are famously anti-union, right?

So Cardone is looking to score some kind of political win, and he’s wasting time and resources to do so.

“We Will Not Go Backwards In This Town”

Support a smaller, more efficient local government that does not encumber the hardworking taxpayers with patronage jobs held by unqualified employees and political cronies. - Campaign pledge of Tony Cardone, September, 2015

Here’s the thing, Supervisor Cardone, we never went forward.

The truth is, that for the entirety of the 21st Century thus far, the Town of Monroe has been stuck with a parade of corrupt Town Supervisors. Each worse than their predecessor.

One final example, former Town Highway Superintendent Anthony Rizzo was arrested and sent to jail. That was a Doles and Leonard guy. The current highway superintendent has been accused of sexual harassment by a former employee. Claims that 2024 State Senate Candidate Dorey Houle and Cardone are alleged to have covered up.

In the words of a former, frequent Monroe visitor, Joe C. Sarnoff: “Same shit. Different Decade.”