It's Time For Your Weekly Southern Orange County News Roundup

Chester Building Moratorium. FOIL-ed Emails from South Blooming Grove's Assistant to the Mayor, Joel Stern, and more shady LLCs in Monroe on Lakes Road.

This post is late because I was at the Village of Woodbury’s Board of Trustees meeting. I’ll have coverage on that meeting for you tomorrow. For now, let’s take a look at what’s going on in our area starting with … Goshen?

No. That can’t be right.

*Checks notes*

Huh. I guess it is …

Town of Goshen

A reader of The Monroe Gazette wrote in with a tip about something of interest going on with the Town of Goshen and their Planning Board. During a March 7th meeting of Goshen’s Planning Board, Diana Lupinski — a Planning Board Member — claimed to have heard that the Goshen Town Board and its Supervisor, Joseph Betro, wanted to eliminate the Environmental Review Board. Planning Board member Martin Holmes, shared Lupinski’s concern and stated he would be in favor of Lupinski’s suggestion of writing a letter of support for keeping Goshen’s Environmental Review Board.

Supervisor Betro was at that meeting, and told The Photo-News’s sister publication, The Chronicle, that no such action was taking place just yet. Betro would go on to say that he would be investigating whether or not New York State’s SEQRA law made the Environmental Planning Board’s existence redundant, since the Environmental Planning Board pre-dates the SEQRA process. SEQRA stands for the State Environmental Quality Review Act, and it can be a bit confusing to follow; but what’s useful to know is that a negative declaration found under SEQRA means there is no environmental impact of a proposed project, while a positive declaration means there is an environmental impact, and would require the creation of a DEIS (Draft Environmental Impact Statement.)

The thing is, the wealthy business interests in the real estate industry lie all the time about whether or not their projects will adversely impact the environment. So, a Planning Board could issue a negative declaration based on false information, or more often than not, a Planning Board that’s been bribed or otherwise coerced to support a project could issue a negative declaration, even if the project does pose a substantial threat to the environment.

I contacted Goshen Supervisor Betro, the Goshen Planning Board Members, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for comment. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.

Moving on …

Town of Chester

Providing further evidence that democracy still works — at least on the local level — the Town of Chester approved the building moratorium unanimously. The moratorium will last for six months with the option to renew it for an additional six months.

During this time the Town of Chester is going to examine and revise its comprehensive plan, so now is actually the time to reach out to the Board members about what you want to see approved in the area, and what you don’t.

For example: Warehouses being built on spec, that is to say, for no reason and with no tenant attached, probably shouldn’t be ok to bring to the Planning Board.

Our friends at Oak Woods Estates made a surprise appearance at the Town Board meeting, asking for their project to be exempt from the moratorium. (You can see that presentation here.) This is the same attorney I provided my questions to and did not hear back from. Again, shocker.

In the video you can hear him refer to Oak Woods Subdivision as “small” four times, but as I pointed out: Oak Woods Subdivision is NOT a small project. It’s part of a much larger project that straddles the Chester-Monroe border.

The lawyer claimed twice that the project was in the most restrictive zoning district, but if you watched the Chester Planning Board meeting, you’ll see there was a discussion about how Oak Woods wanted to change its acreage so that the property wouldn’t have to undergo water testing from the Department of Health.

Isn’t it amazing how, if you got money, you can pay lawyers to just straight up lie for you at Town Board meetings?

I emailed this concern to Supervisor Holdridge, who stated,

“We passed the building moratorium last night and the Oak Woods development was not exempt from it. We did not fulfill their request for an exemption in any way.”

You can read the full interview I did with Chester Town Supervisor Holdridge here, which was conducted prior to the meeting this week.

So, I know a lot of us get frustrated with the way things are done in Orange County, but this is a nice win to put up on the board; and you should all pat yourselves on the back for being loud and reminding all of our local politicians who they work for.

Until there’s a time where the residents who depend on Lakes Road can get around safely — given the increase in flooding — there shouldn’t be any new work done there.

Fix the flooding issue first. Then build. Seems like common sense, but then again …

Town of Monroe

There’s some activity going on at 857 Lakes Road.

857 Lakes Road is owned by 857 Lakes Rd LLC with the address provided to Orange County for that LLC as 225 Broadway Fl 24, New York NY 10007. A Mr. David Jaroslawicz is listed. That Manhattan office belongs to Jaroslawicz & Jaros, LLC. Mr. Jaroslawicz is registered to practice law here in New York and Florida. His attorney registration number with the New York State Court System is 1013671. I’m not quite sure why personal injury lawyers are listed as the people to get in touch with concerning real estate, so your guess is as good as mine on that one.

Interestingly, there are no results (that I could find) in the Department of State database for 857 Lakes Road LLC.

Which, goes back to a concern raised by Monroe residents that our Building Department might not be checking and verifying the information submitted to the town when it comes to the LLCs to make sure they are who they say they are.

857 Lakes Road was purchased by 857 Lakes Road LLC in 2005 for $2.5M. According to a reader of The Monroe Gazette, residents surrounding 857 Lakes have asked the Town to come clean it up for years, due to the garbage and overall dilapidated nature of the houses on the property.

Perhaps not coincidentally with the passage of Chester’s building moratorium and the blocking of Oak Woods Subdivision LLC, there is now activity at 857 Lakes Road with the garbage being cleaned and trees being knocked down.

I’ve reached out to the Building Department in Monroe to see if they have permission to be knocking down those trees.

Town of Woodbury / Village

More on this tomorrow …

Monroe-Woodbury School District

I know. I’m like a week late on this. But at some point I will get a breather from the crime and other dumbassery that goes on in our local towns and villages and will have a chance to look at the budget and ask questions on your behalf.

Dumbassery is what I call behavior that isn’t illegal, but gets right up to that line. So like, the liaisons thing in the Town of Monroe is a great example of this. It’s not illegal, but it’s just shitty and unethical. Ditto with the Deputy Highway Superintendent thing. More on that soon. I just need comment from two people before I can run that story.

Spoiler Alert: Supervisor Cardone’s description of the contract negotiations with IBEW was, once again, a little less than honest.

South Blooming Grove

First, a reminder: On April 3rd, there will be a LIVE, virtual meeting held by the DEC concerning Keen Equities LLC and their definitely committed crimes involving the Clovewood Property. Below are the times and registration links. If you have the time, I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to log in and participate in these meetings.

April 3, 2024; 2:00 p.m.: https://dec.ny.gov/get-involved/events/clovewood-legislative-public-com…

April 3, 2024; 6:00 p.m.: https://dec.ny.gov/get-involved/events/clovewood-legislative-public-com…

Don’t know what to say? Want to send an email to the DEC instead? I got you covered. Just send this.

Second, we need to talk about garbage, because I have a whole bunch of fun, FOIL-ed emails to share with you.

First, some background: South Blooming Grove wants to create a Waste Improvement District within the borders of the Village. This is, according to written statements sent to the Village Board by residents, redundant, unnecessary, and a financial burden for residents already paying for garbage services provided by Marangi.

-Much like in the rest of Monroe — parts of South Blooming Grove are in Monroe, which is stupid and confusing to me — The Town is in charge of the garbage. Not the Village. So the Town has legal jurisdiction over the decisions that are made. In short, creating a new garbage district in the village legally violates the Town’s ability to manage this. If the Village wants to create a new garbage district, there has to be a compelling legal case to do so.

-On April 11th, 2022, Joel Stern was appointed Confidential Assistant to the Mayor. He is not the Assistant Mayor, but yes, I did think of Dwight from “The Office” with Mr. Stern’s apparent insistence on calling himself the Assistant Mayor when he’s the assistant to the mayor.

Anyway …

Based on the emails FOIL-ed by residents of South Blooming Grove, it looks like he’s acting in the capacity of the mayor, which goes back to concerns raised by residents and State Senator Skoufis that our attorney general has done nothing about. Mr. Stern is best known locally for acting like a schmuck in this video with News 12’s Blaise Gomez.

That brings us to the FOIL-ed emails. I’ve uploaded the full exchange here between Mr. Stern and Mr. Robert Jeroloman. Jerolman is the Town Supervisor for South Blooming Grove.

These emails were collected and compiled by Chris Maderia. A special thanks to him for putting these together and giving everyone a hilarious — but no less infuriating — weekend read.

I’ll have more on South Blooming Grove over the next couple of weeks, since those DEC events are fast approaching.

And as always, if you’d like to send a tip in to The Monroe Gazette, you can do it on Facebook — which a lot of you do — but you can also send them to BJMendelson@Duck.com.

-B.J.

P.S. You can also get a paid subscription to The Monroe Gazette. This newsletter will always be free, but if you’d like to be able to leave a comment on the stories that are posted, or just want to support independent journalism, subscriptions are the best way to do just that.