Local Bigot Announces Campaign To Be Your Next Mayor of Woodbury
Part one of our two part look into the low lights of Woodbury Town Councilman, Brandon Calore, during his time as your elected representative.
Welcome back. I spent the entirety of January sick. First with some random illness and then with COVID. It'll take me a while to reply to some of your emails and report on a few of the stories I've been working on. We have an extensive backlog I now need to work through.
Before we get to today's story, here's a reminder for subscribers: You can join our Facebook Group here. With one exception—we'll talk more about that exception in February—this is the only place I'm posting on Facebook. From now on, if you enjoy these posts, I’m going to encourage you to share them elsewhere.
I made this decision because of Meta's recent policy changes. I'm not interested in providing content for their platforms, but a good chunk of readers still use Facebook. So, the compromise was just to set up a group that I operate. If you want to know what I'm working on or more minor news updates that aren't quite worthy of full-length posts, that group is the only place to go. I deleted my Instagram account. Some day, perhaps on or after November 15th, 2025, if there’s no more Gazette, I’ll also delete my Facebook account.
Here’s what you’re missing in the group: While researching this story, I came across a resolution signed by every Democratic Senator, except John Fetterman, condemning the pardons for the January 6th terrorists by President Trump. So I called Senator Fetterman's office, and they told me there was a "miscommunication." With whom, the spokesperson did not say. Mr. Fetterman did, in fact, sign the resolution. He was just the last one to do so. That's not exactly something I'm going to write a whole post about, but it's interesting enough that I told the subscribers in the Facebook group about it.
Now, let's get to today's post. Wherein current buffoon, and Woodbury Town Councilman, Brandon Calore, has announced he's running for mayor of the Village of Woodbury. Based on what accomplishments is anyone's guess. (Seriously. If you can identify one, please do let us know.)
Did You Know?
You can become a monthly subscriber for $10. (Substack doesn’t let us turn off the annual subscription option, so please ignore this and the other paid options. Our goal is to sign up 100 monthly subscribers. Benefits include access to old posts, the ability to comment on new ones, and our exclusive Facebook group.)
Area Man Plans to Fail Upwards With Your Support
If you're new here, the following is a short-ish list of things Councilman Calore has verifiably done while on the Woodbury Town Board:
-Enforced a five-minute rule for public comment even though attendance at a Woodbury Town Board meeting is often less than that of a Calore for Mayor rally.
-Failed to discipline Cathy Schmidt, Woodbury Public Libary Board President. This came after Mrs. Schmidt threatened, and then had to be physically restrained, from attacking a local resident. This incident occurred in full view of Mr. Calore. It happened at the October 2024 Town of Woodbury Budget workshop, where the Library budget was being discussed. (The Monroe Gazette has been in touch with the Woodbury Town Board, including Mr. Calore, who have failed to respond to inquiries as to why Mrs. Schmidt was not disciplined for her second documented public outburst involving a local resident. Something that violates her duties and responsibilities as laid out by the New York State Education Department concerning the behavior of Library board members. Ditto with her repeated, disparaging Facebook comments about local residents that you should all be screenshotting and sending to the New York State Education Department. The Monroe Gazette is in touch with the New York State Education Department, as well as other organizations, concerning Mrs. Schmidt’s behavior and what actions residents can take against her. Our libraries are the first line of defense for democracy and the last refuge for those in our community in need. They must be defended. Sometimes, they must be defended from themselves.
-Voted to give Part-Time Woodbury Town Supervisor Kathryn Luciani full-time pay and make her the highest-paid Town Supervisor in the history of the Town of Woodbury. (Both Calore and Luciani had the opportunity to adjust the Supervisor's salary during the 2023 Budget discussions. They declined to do so and then made Luciani's pay raise their first order of business upon Luciani's swearing-in as Supervisor.)
-Approve the hiring of Luciani's son at the Animal Shelter despite ethical concerns raised by residents. Calore also oversaw, in his capacity as Town Board member, a disturbing incident at the Animal Shelter that resulted in the questionable death of a local dog — which the shelter later blamed on Flannery Animal Hospital — and a kitten. One that somehow found its way into a dryer. Clovewood Kathryn would then engage in a fiction, supported by Calore, that nobody else applied for the Animal Shelter role given to her son. This was later refuted by Woodbury residents, including the wife of an applicant Luciani's son was hired over. Luciani’s son would later leave the animal shelter, along with a long, exhaustive string of other parties, under nebulous circumstances. Recently, the Town of Monroe agreed to a much higher fee as part of its inter-municipal agreement concerning the Animal Shelter with the Town of Woodbury. Indicating that Tax Hike Tony (Tony Cardone) is using the Town of Monroe taxpayer money to subsidize the repeated mismanagement and failures of the Luciani-led Woodbury Town Board. Given that Cardone advises Luciani, the waste and mismanagement of taxpayer money to cover up for his friend should be no surprise to anyone.
This is also one of those issues that Woodbury and Monroe voters have a shared interest in addressing during November’s upcoming election. Monroe residents have enough financial challenges ahead of them. They do not, and should not, be subsidizing boneheaded malfeasance in Woodbury.
-Made bigoted remarks about the City of Newburgh at a December 2023 Woodbury Village Board meeting. Calore compared the Village of Woodbury to Newburgh for opening a cannabis dispensary. (Note that as of this writing, no dispensary has opened.) When the current Woodbury Mayor repeatedly asked what was wrong with Newburgh, Calore finally said at the meeting, "I don't like the drug traffic, man." The Mayor of Newburgh has not replied to requests to respond to Mr. Calore's remarks about "the drug traffic." Mr. Calore has declined to reply to multiple requests by The Monroe Gazette to clarify his comments about Newburgh. Nor has he ever apologized to Woodbury and Newburgh residents for them.
-Oversaw, in his capacity as Town Councilman, the replacement of not one but two Town of Woodbury attorneys (McKay, Thater) in less than a year. Then, after widespread criticism by residents, Calore, Luciani, and friends voted to toss the Town of Woodbury Ethics Code in favor of a new one. This new Ethics Code allows the Town Board to hire their children to work for the Town. After Luciani’s son departed the Animal Shelter, Calore, Luciani, and Luongo refused to revert back to the old and more popular Town of Woodbury Ethics Code.
-Repeatedly disparaged — over MONTHS — the Village Trustees over what Calore claimed was their "refusal" to discuss or negotiate the Town and Village's Intermunicipal Agreement. As of this writing, the Town of Woodbury has failed to provide any and all emails via a FOIL request concerning their "negotiations" with the Village. So, there's no evidence to suggest that any good-faith attempt at negotiation ever occurred. (The current FOIL situation: Thater was said to be going over the emails from the Town Board members and redacting material, but Thater is no longer the Town attorney. The Town Clerk says it’s still his responsibility to finish the work on this FOIL. I’m not going to lie to you, I already took the Village of South Blooming Grove to court over non-compliance with a FOIL. So continued stonewalling by the Town of Woodbury will also end up in court if this isn’t resolved soon.)
As Monroe Gazette readers know, there was no negotiation. There was one workshop, however, where James Freiband—he of Weekend at Bernie’s sequel fame—and Matthew Fabbro—surprisingly without Mom in tow—showed up and agreed with almost everything the Town Board members had to say at the workshop. Everyone spouted a whole bunch of misinformation. Woodbury Village Trustee Susan Fries-Ciriello was the only adult in the room.
You can see it for yourself here:
The Town of Woodbury’s “negotiation” was really a series of demands
Demands Town Board members repeatedly badgered the Village Trustees with. The ones with functioning brains and Mom’s not telling them what to do. (“Shut up Mom, I’m voting!” is something I bet my life has been said in the Fabbro home at least once.)
Then, when the Village did not comply with the bullying, Calore, Luciani, and Luongo threw a giant temper tantrum. This temper tantrum resulted in the loss of sales tax revenue for the Town. The Town later approved an over 11% tax increase for Town residents to cover up for their irresponsible behavior. Because that’ll show the Village who’s boss!
-The Town also falsely claimed that it would suspend VTL fee payments by the Town Court to the Village. You may have even seen this repeated as a fact on the front page of The Photo-News. But as stated by Village Treasurer Desiree Potvin, at no point in the history of the Village of Woodbury have these fees ever been paid to the Village, a period going back nearly 20 years. (Straus News has the nerve to ask you to give them $150 for this absolutely outstanding journalism work. Great job calling this one out, guys!)
-This one gets complicated. But here’s the brief version: Calore caused an incident, which then spread to involve multiple Town Volunteers. The incident began when Calore misbehaved during a resident’s interview for a volunteer position. Basically, Mr. Calore got up repeatedly to shovel ice and snow outside instead of being courteous and respectful to a Town resident. One interested in volunteering their very limited free time to benefit Town residents. Do you know how hard it is to get anyone to volunteer for anything today? Are you serious, Brandon? I can’t wait to see how you manage volunteers for the Village of Woodbury.
Here’s where it gets complicated: First, Calore and Luciani have repeatedly tried to break their lease with the current location for Woodbury Town Board meetings. You may have heard that Woodbury Town Board meetings are now being held at the old courthouse despite safety concerns about the old building. Luciani claims an engineer has said the second floor of the Old Court House is safe — the second floor being a source of great concern for many years — but like anything with Calore and Luciani, your guess is as good as mine as to whether that’s true or not. So, let’s not skip this point: Brandon Calore and Kathryn Luciani are compulsive liars.
Town Board meetings will now be held on the first floor of the old building, where parking is an issue. So not only did they break the lease of a perfectly fine, accessible building, they moved to one with serious accessibility issues for a mostly elderly population that they serve. The odds are good Calore disrupted the interview to shovel, and complained about having to shovel, as part of the larger campaign to break the lease.
After the shoveling incident — and after Calore made disparaging statements aimed at the person who’s interview he disrupted — Clovewood Kathryn publicly blamed Calore's behavior on an alleged mental illness. She did this at a Town Board meeting, because she has no idea what HIPPA is and/or she’s a jackass. It’s not like anyone blames (REDACTED) for Mrs. Luciani’s terrible judgment and leadership. Right? … Right?
I don’t want to blow by this point either. So let’s stop here for a second: Calore hasn't confirmed if he suffers from ADHD, and honestly, it's none of our business.
But …
Millions of Americans suffer from one form of mental illness or another. (Insert joke here.) Many of them serve as your elected officials. (Insert joke here about the president.) Jokes aside, my point here is this: Absolutely none of those people who suffer from mental illness use that mental illness as an excuse to be an asshole.
So whether or not Calore has ADHD — again, that’s not our business — we also have to put our foot down on anyone attempting to use conditions like ADHD to excuse their bad behavior. Mental Illness is a serious affliction impacting millions of Americans. It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, as implied by Supervisor Luciani.
-So, this Calore-caused incident led to the resignation of a long-time town volunteer because of another fabrication. One made up by Clovewood Kathryn and supported by the town board, of which Calore is a member. This fabrication opened the Town up to a potential slander lawsuit because, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Mrs. Luciani made up a story about the person who interviewed for the position. saying that this person was "swearing in front of children." A claim repeated, once again, in The Photo-News without any fact-checking. (Seriously. $150. What a steal for outstanding journalism, you guys. Everyone make sure to tell Jeanne Straus what a great job her editors and reporters are doing. Or better still, maybe tell some of Mrs. Straus’s advertisers. I promise that Straus News would immediately start fact-checking their stories if the advertisers asked them to do so. “Talk is Cheap”? Yeah? So is fact-checking, Straus News.)
Here are the facts: This incident, as alleged by Supervisor Luciani, never happened. The Monroe Gazette spoke to witnesses, FOIL’ed documents, and reviewed the security camera footage Mrs. Luciani claimed would prove her point. She lied. It didn’t. What did happen was that Mrs. Luciani had a broom closet meeting with Teresa Luongo (Councilwoman Gretchen Weiners) and they decided to make up this dumbass story about the volunteer instead. Seriously. They met in a broom closet. This was confirmed by multiple residents we spoke with as part of the research for this story. The Woodbury Town Board did not reply to requests for comment on whether they routinely conduct their other business in broom closets. We seriously don’t think Tony Cardone could fit in one.
So, it can be factually said that this current Town Board, which Councilman Calore is a part of, opened the Town up to a lawsuit that Town residents would have to pay for. Don’t be shocked. Remember that this Town Board also threatened the Village of Woodbury with an expensive lawsuit if the Village did not comply with the Town’s demands.
To which I just have to say to Woodbury residents: What the actual fuck?
One last point …
Let's also not forget that this Town Board—which includes Brandon Calore—concocted a plan with State Senator James G. Skoufis that absolutely nobody asked for: merging the Town of Woodbury with the Village of Woodbury. A plan that would only benefit the wealthy and the well-connected real estate developers. Ones like Ziggy Brach (Clovewood's majority shareholder and campaign donor to Kathryn Luciani) and Wayne Corts (campaign donor to the Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats).
There is little doubt Wayne Corts supports Luciani's re-election bid for Supervisor and Calore's run for Woodbury Village Mayor. While I applaud the bipartisanship, this Wayne Corts Coalition (Luciani, Luongo, Calore, Fabbro—both of them—and Freiband) has not been subtle about their plan to work together in 2025. You can see it in the Facebook activity of both Fabbros. (Hey, maybe I’m not the only one who should be cutting back on their Facebook activity, you know?)
There is no way such a profoundly unpopular individual like Mr. Calore would announce a bid for mayor unless there were some plan to work together with Skoufis, the Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats, and Wayne Corts. Zero. These people are stupid, but they’re not THAT stupid.
By the way, this list is just off the top of my head. If I seriously sat down and went through previous Woodbury Town Board meetings from 2023 and 2024, I'm sure the list would be longer.
And yes, I know. We haven't even got to Mr. Calore's arrest for battery in Florida. His arrest here for assaulting a disabled teenager. You know, the one that came after being asked by the teenager's mother to put on a mask during the height of the pandemic. Yes. That one. And of course, then there’s Mr. Calore's subsequent lawsuit against the mother for talking about the incident on Facebook.
The funny thing about that lawsuit, though, is that soft on Crime District Attorney David Hoovler didn't prosecute Mr. Calore for assaulting the teenager. Much like Hoovler didn't prosecute Sal Scancarello for his assault on Monroe Town Councilwoman Maureen Richardson, it must be nice to be a white guy in Southern Orange County, huh? You can just go around hitting women, and DA Hoovler isn’t going to do shit to you.
I mention this because, had Calore not sued the victim's mother, there wouldn't be any evidence that the incident occurred. But, Mr. Calore — being the violent idiot that he is — decided to create a paper trail for anyone to follow. And yeah, anyone who says to a co-worker, like Mr. Calore did in the Town of Cornwall, “If you do that again, I will rip you out of the truck and kick the shit out of you,” is a violent idiot. Anyone who wants to dispute Mr. Calore’s violent tendencies can look at his two arrests and this Human Resources file from the Town of Cornwall.
We also haven’t mentioned the subject of our follow-up post. You see, I held one item on this list for the very end.
-During a recent Woodbury Town Board meeting, Calore promoted a local bar and grill that, according to Woodbury residents and former employees, has hosted gatherings of the Proud Boys, including — allegedly! — the night before the terrorist attack on the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021. (The owner of the bar and grill posted a video of themself walking toward the Capitol on January 6th, but there’s no evidence to suggest they entered it. That said, the owner has also repeatedly told people the FBI cleared them. And then they’ve said anyone could ask the FBI. This is misleading.
You can’t just ask the FBI for anything, let alone the record of anyone alive, unless you’re a member of law enforcement. We know because, as part of researching this story, we asked. They also refuted that being “cleared by the FBI” was absolution for any wrongdoing on January 6th. An FBI spokesperson told The Monroe Gazette that charging decisions were often left to USAO-DC (United States Attorney’s Office in Washington D.C.) We are still waiting for comment from the US Attorney’s office. Given the recent change in presidential administrations, we’re not optimistic we’ll get a response.
So … We have also been in touch with the New York State Attorney General’s office about whether or not they will prosecute people responsible for January 6th who have either not been prosecuted yet or were recently pardoned by President Trump. The President’s pardon does NOT prevent the State Attorney General, in any state, from charging J6 terrorists if the planning for their crimes occurred within their home state.
Now, legally, I can’t tell you the name of this place. That’s because I have witness statements, but there’s no smoking gun. I haven’t walked in there, ala Blazing Saddles, and said, “Where all the Jews at?” But in my capacity as a private citizen, I can absolutely tell you what restaurants I like and don’t like in Southern Orange County. So, if you want to talk about those places, you can email me.
For the purposes of our follow-up post: I am less interested in that place than I am in Councilman Brandon Calore’s endorsement of it. Not to mention his refusal to state whether or not he’s a member of the Proud Boys; and whether or not he thinks January 6th was a “peaceful protest.”
A candidate for Mayor of Woodbury who supports the fascist takeover of America? Hell yes. THAT is a story. And that’s the one we’re going to be doing very soon. So I hope you’ll stick around. Because we’re not quite done here with Woodbury Town Councilman Brandon Calore.