How You Can Stop This American Town From Turning Into Putin's Russia
The Town of Woodbury in upstate New York is demonstrating what happens when a town government is overtaken by the kind of corruption that usually defines a Kleptocracy.
What Kind of Country Do You Want To Have?
Do you want to live in an America where our elected officials — local, state, and national — behave ethically and responsibly?
Or do you want to live in an America that more closely resembles Putin’s Russia, where the government is used as a tool to enrich and empower the friends of a despot and his enablers?
This one small town in America, is trending in that second direction by allowing a local theocracy to dictate its actions, while the politicians that theocracy empowered use the local government to enrich themselves and their families.
You might say that's hyperbole. But that’s the exact definition of a Kleptocracy, and it accurately describes what’s happening right here in the Town of Woodbury in upstate New York.
The Woodbury Town Supervisor, Kathryn Luciani, has only passed one law this year: a raise that made her the highest-paid Woodbury Town Supervisor in the 21st Century—maybe in all of the Town’s nearly 136-year history.
The second law she's working on? Under New York State General Municipal Law, nothing prohibits a Town Board member from hiring their children. (That seems like something our State Assembly and State Senate should be addressing.)
So Mrs. Luciani hired her son to work at the Animal Shelter despite the Town Ethics Code prohibiting her from doing so, fired the previous Town Attorney, and now she and the other Town Board members would like to hire their own family members to work for the town as well.
That is literally the definition of a Kleptocracy.
This is not normal or even healthy behavior for a Democracy. In fact, as I’ve already pointed out, that’s not how a Democracy works at all. That’s how a Kleptocracy works.
A Kleptocracy, for those of you who want to know, is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “a government whose corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) use political power to expropriate the wealth of the people and land they govern, typically by embezzling or misappropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population.”
It's this EXACT sort of behavior we need to draw a line in the sand over, if we're going to keep our government and its related institutions from continuing their backslide into a Russian-like Kleptocracy.
Because that’s what our country will look like if this sort of behavior continues: The powerful can do whatever they want. The elected officials those powerful entities empower will use and abuse the government to enrich themselves, and you’ll just be shit out of luck.
The little things matter.
If you don't want lawless, dangerous people like Trump at the top of the ticket on the federal level, then on the local level, you need to speak up and make sure your elected officials like Town of Woodbury Supervisor Kathryn Luciani are responsible in discharging the duties of their office.
Accountability starts at the local level.
If you want to change the direction America is heading in, this is how you do it: By holding your local elected officials accountable for their actions.
The only thing stopping the Woodbury Town Board from paying their kids with your money, unless people speak up, is that the Town currently has a Code of Ethics that prohibits Board members from doing so.
It is urgent that the residents of Woodbury speak up and tell the Town Board that the only amendments to the Code of Ethics that governs the Town should be to strengthen it, not weaken it.
Right now, the second law that Supervisor Luciani is looking to pass would amend and weaken the Town Ethics Code.
If this was a political thing, this is where I'd ask you if the behavior by Town of Woodbury Supervisor Kathryn Luciani makes any sense for a bunch of Republicans to take.
Especially given that this is the party that hates welfare. So what are a bunch of Republicans doing giving someone else's money to their kids? Isn't this the party of fiscal responsibility and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?
But, as I keep saying, this isn't about politics.
Accountability has no political party.
Accountability should be the default standard no matter what party or platform a candidate for office chooses to run on.
And in America, we don't operate our local governments like piggy banks for the children of our elected officials.
That's Putin-shit, and we're better than that.
So, you can continue letting America backslide into a Putin-like Thugocracy, where wealthy families like the Sacklers can get away with contributing to the deaths of 560,000 people.
Or you can make sure the wealthy and the powerful have no influence over our political system, and that we hold our elected officials accountable so as not to themselves become influenced by the wealthy and the powerful.
Political Parties, at this point in the conversation, don't have much relevance.
They matter when we're talking about state-level politics, like with the New York State Democratic Party, which has been an enabler of Orange, Rockland, and Sullivan's growing theocracy since the 1970s. (Not to be outdone, there’s a solid argument to be made that Governor George Pataki, a Republican, was elected governor as a reward for being the one who came up with the idea of the Kiryas Joel school district in the first place. A school district that is currently under investigation for stealing nearly $100M in COVID funds and not providing any sort of accounting of where that money went. Thanks, George.)
Here’s another, much more recent example of the State Democrats enabling the theocracy:
Below is video of then-Assemblyman James Skoufis pointing out in his victory speech how he won despite the opposition of Kiryas Joel, and despite the lack of support of then-Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo.
Andrew Cuomo, like his father, was an early and frequent enabler of the local theocracy in Kiryas Joel that Skoufis is speaking out against in the video. Like his successor, Kathy Hochul, Andrew Cuomo also often vetoed legislation that Kiryas Joel did not like, often late at night at the end of the calendar year, when no one was paying attention.
Five years later, in 2024, now State Senator Skoufis actively courts Kiryas Joel's vote by proposing a merger between the Town and Village of Woodbury. Such a soft merger would allow the Rebbe to take control of the affairs of Woodbury by only giving him one board to take over instead of two.
My, how times change. But it proves yet again that the New York State Democratic Party works on behalf of powerful individuals and not the people.
The Mechanisms For Accountability Is Broken
If you don't want to live in a country that looks a hell of a lot like Putin's Russia, then you need to speak up and ensure that your local elected officials — no matter who or where they may be in America — are acting ethically and responsibly.
Accountability starts here at home, and it begins with you asking for it.
And one of the things we must ask for are strong, independent, Boards of Ethics that have the power to examine the behavior of our elected officials and remove them from office if necessary.
The Town of Woodbury does not have one.
Currently, two theocracy-backed Village of Woodbury Trustees, Matthew Fabbro and James Friedband, are loudly and actively trying to sabotage the creation of an ethics board in the Village of Woodbury as well.
Mr. Fabbro is a close associate of Senator James Skoufis, who has actively attacked the leading choice for the Village of Woodbury Ethics Board, which has led — for example — to Mr. Fabbro trying to derail the process of creating an ethics board by calling it "political."
Accountability knows no political party. The only people with something to fear from accountability are those with something to hide.
So here we have a State Senator, working on behalf of powerful individuals, actively interfering in the creation and appointment of a Woodbury Ethics Committee for the Village, using a Villag Trustee to sow discord and disrupt the process.
(The Village Trustee, Matthew Fabbro, should be reminded that he has a fiduciary responsibility to the people of Woodbury and not the State Senator's office. The people of Woodbury should consider that if Skoufis is attacking the choice for the Ethics Board, then that choice is probably the best one for the job, given the context.
Context Counts
The context behind what's happening in Orange (where Woodbury is located), Sullivan, and Rockland Counties is that there's a growing theocracy that exhibits an inordinate amount of power over the mostly secular 824,621 residents of the area.
That is a huge reason the Villages of Woodbury and South Blooming Grove were created in the first place.
Now, we're watching it slowly happen in Woodbury, aided by the Town Board members, two Village Trustees, and State Senator Skoufis. Not even the creation of a village was enough to shut down the efforts of very powerful people to get what they want.
That’s not how America is supposed to work.
In the context of Rockland, Sullivan, and Orange County, we have these two guys with as much power as any king would have: Aaron and Zalman Teitelbaum.
The exact kind of king we issued a Declaration of Independence From in 1776.
In the case of Rockland, you actually have a bunch of mini-Aarons and Zalmans representing different Haredi groups, when added up, they exhibit the same level of influence these brothers have politically.
Regardless, the point here is the same: Three counties in the State of New York have governments that are heavily influenced by the money and votes the Teitelbaums can bring with them, and that influence extends all the way up through the New York State Democratic Party to the very top. This includes a congressman actively derailing the budgeting process in New York State in order to secure a win for Aaron Teitelbaum in advance of an upcoming election.
That level of power and influence is little different from that in Russia under a Kleptocracy, where the powerful make the rules or break them.
Now, just to be clear: The fact that they're Rebbes really isn't that big of a deal.
The influence exhibited by the Teitelbaum's in Orange, Sullivan, and Rockland is no different than that of billionaires like Reid Hoffman, a corrupt tech bro, exhibit on the national level.
That's the root of this issue.
It's not about specific religions. It's about the undue influence powerful people have in our political system at the expense of everyone else.
This undue influence creates Kleptocracies like the one that has been set up in the Town of Woodbury.
And without holding those powerful people and our elected officials accountable, then our country will continue looking more like modern-day Russia and less like the idea of what America should be.
Reid Hoffman, for example, is a Democratic party mega-donor currently pressuring Team Harris to commit to firing Lina Kahn as head of the FTC. This is despite the fact that Lina Kahn is doing a great fucking job at terrifying rich assholes like Reid Hoffman and companies like Google.
So, I want you to forget about religion for a moment. The central issue, in the context of Southern Orange County, Rockland, and Sullivan, is that two guys hold THAT much power over the lives of almost a million people across three counties in New York State. (And over a million once you factor in residents of Brooklyn.)
That's not what the Founders of America intended.
When you want to factor in religion, you've then got an even bigger problem.
Regardless of the SPECIFIC religion (they could all worship flying spaghetti monsters, and you'd have the same issues), you do verifiably have two guys actively operating theocracies. Both dictate what non-followers get in terms of representation in public office, such as what you see in Woodbury.
It is a fact that Woodbury Town Supervisor provided an extra garbage pick-up (among additional free services) only for members of Mr. Aaron Teitelbaum’s religious group. That’s a violation of the Establishment Clause.
It is a fact that the Woodbury Police Chief made up a non-existent religious exemption to the Town Code to justify not enforcing the law of the Town against a member of Mr. Teitelbaum’s religious group. (And then there’s the whole issue of the bear murder.)
Both actions are now subject to potential investigation by the New York State Comptroller’s office.
Both actions also clearly violate the Constitution's Establishment Clause and the 14th Amendment.
And that sort of power warps the important discussions that need to take place in this part of New York.
Another example: Orange County’s State Senator, James "The G Stands for Giant Ethical Lapses In Judgment That I'll Later Blame My Staff For" Skoufis has said we can't talk about Aaron Teitelbaum here in Southern Orange County.
That would be fear-mongering, according to the Senator.
So, if you have concerns about climate change and how the rampant and unchecked development driven by the Rebbe, you can't discuss them, according to the Senator.
Curious, given what he said in his victory speech just five years ago, huh?
I have no doubt residents of Rockland and Sullivan have heard similar things from their politicians.
If you raise concerns about the environment in either country, you may have been dismissed as antisemitic, which, as we've seen with Israel, has become a go-to tactic for shutting down dissent here in America about the actions of the Netanyahu government.
You can, and should, absolutely question the Netanyahu government over its actions in Gaza and repeated failure to prioritize bringing home all the hostages and killing the schmucks responsible for the attack.
(That would be the leadership of Hamas, living comfortably in other countries, not the people of Gaza.)
And the same way you can question the Netanyahu government, you can question the actions of Rebbes Aaron and Zalman Teitelbaum.
There's nothing antisemitic in doing so. There is something anti-American, however, in shutting down discussion and holding powerful people accountable for their actions.
You can, and should, hold powerful people accountable in order to prevent America from turning into a Russian-like Kleptocracy.
Every time both Netanyahu and the Teitelbaums claim criticism of their actions is antisemitism, it actually cheapens and weakens the use of that term to identify real danger to the Jewish community, of which I am a proud part.
So, take it from your friendly neighborhood Jew, it's not antisemitism to have concerns about climate change and the impact of the Rebbes actions in worsening the environmental situation here across these three counties.
So, What Are YOU Going To Do About It?
That brings us back to Woodbury. Because with the appropriate context, you can understand why the Village of Woodbury was created: Help was not coming in the form of the State Democratic Party in terms of the theocracy. So an additional buffer was needed.
You can also understand the actions of the Woodbury Town Supervisor, Kathryn Luciani: Working for the powerful Aaron Teitelbaum allows her to get away with doing shady, Putin-like shit like hiring her son to work for the Town and weakening the local Ethics Code to allow other Town Board members to do the same.
Now, State Senator Skoufis wants to eliminate that buffer created by the Village of Woodbury via creating a single governing entity that would rule over both Town and Village. He doesn't want to call that a merger, but that's exactly what it is.
And we can infer, based on his specific attacks on the Mayor of the Village of Woodbury, that the State Senator would like a new unified board run by people like Town Supervisor Luciani and Village Trustees Fabbro and Friedband. Theocracy-friendly, in other words.
You can stop that.
Not just in this part of New York, but all across America, by asking that our elected officials be held accountable when they don’t act responsibly.
And ensuring that there are mechanisms in place, such as ethics boards, to remove them from office when they step out of line.
Call up your local County, Village, Town, or City clerk and ask if there’s an Ethics Committee. And if there’s not, ask why.
Doing so is one of the few ways we have to stop this country from becoming a Russian-like Kleptocracy.
Accountability isn’t political. It’s the foundation that a fair and just America rests on.
Are you up for the challenge? Because way more people need to be attending their local meetings and speaking up. Not just in Orange, Rockland, and Sullivan County, but all across America.
I loved listening to the Town’s lawyer BS explanation of the revisions to the ethics code. A veritable word salad to try and hide the fact they were, in fact, weakening the code to allow more hanky panky!