Office Hours: Giant Venomous Spider Edition

Today's questions include the Falkirk Golf Course, Route 208, and what you should do about those giant spiders that are allegedly on their way.

Howdy.

I’m down with a migraine. But I don’t want to leave you empty handed.

So today, for our paid subscribers, I will be holding office hours.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, don’t worry. You’ll still get a lot out of this post.

How Does Office Hours Work?

If you are a paying subscriber to The Monroe Gazette, there are two benefits:

1. You can post comments on our stories without having to deal with trolls, bots, and the Russian Intelligence operatives that you find on Facebook and elsewhere.

I wish that last one was a joke. It’s not.

2. I’m going to make Office Hours a weekly thing, since I tend to get migraines on an almost weekly basis. (They’re weather triggered, so it’s a bit unpredictable.) If I don’t have a migraine, I’ll hold Office Hours every Friday.

During Office Hours, paid subscribers can leave a comment below with a question about what’s going on in their community.

My job will be to either:

A) Answer that question right away

or

B) Research and write-up a post that will answer that question.

Sound good?

And if you’re not yet a paid subscriber, don’t worry. The Monroe Gazette will always be free. And I have some questions already that I’m going to answer just to get us started.

Let’s start with those giant spiders the media claims are on their way here.

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-What’s up with the Joro spiders coming to New York?

The Joro spiders are not yet here in New York, despite recent headlines to the contrary.

They may never arrive here in New York.

Like a lot of things with Climate Change, we just don’t know what the future holds.

But it’s important to stress that these giant venomous spiders are not about to invade your backyard this Summer.

If you’d like to help keep the spiders at bay, there’s something you can do: Send this letter to Governor Kathy Hochul’s office.

The letter asks for her to support the bill that would allow any municipality (outside of New York City) enact a land preservation fee on real estate transfers and sales. Each community would be given a choice to opt-in or not. So it’s not an automatic tax. It’s a choice.

This choice, and the fee, are used to preserve green space in New York State.

How does that keep the spiders away?

Setting land aside for preservation helps cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, which are warming the planet and making states like New York inhabitable for them and other invasive species.

It really is simple as that. But you have to do it. You have to speak up.

-What’s going on with that advertisement from the American Chemistry Council in The Photo-News?

The advertisement, which The Photo-News did not label properly, was advocating for people in Southern Orange County to reach out to Senator James Skoufis. If you live in Rockland and Sullivan, you might have also seen versions of this ad in your local newspaper.

The American Chemistry Council wanted to trick people into thinking there was some liberal plot against Summer.

As a liberal, I can safely say: We’re not plotting against Summer.

This advertisement was part of an effort to kill the The Package Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act. The bill, among other things, would take the burden off local municipalities to recycle a lot of plastic, and other packaging material, and on to the super rich corporations who can easily afford plastic recycling measures.

This is great for people concerned about the already high tax burden here in New York, because your local government will save money, and the giant corporations will have to take over the recycling of certain materials like plastic.

The good news is that this bill was passed.

The bad news is that it was watered down.

Either way, the American Chemistry Council is still super pissed about it. So I doubt this is the last you and I have heard from them on this issue.

I’ll remind you that the ACC represents some of the wealthiest companies on Earth. ExxonMobil, a member of the ACC, had a pre-tax income of $52B in 2023. And they are just ONE member of the ACC.

All of the companies combined will not notice the difference in terms of their bottom line with the passage of this bill.

-Can You Tell Me About What’s Going On at the Falkirk Golf Course?

Yes. There are haredi who own the former golf course, and they want to pack in a whole lot of condos.

How many? I don’t know yet.

Here’s what I do know on the situation:

-Like with ACE Farms, Mr. Wayne Corts is acting as a front man for these developers. He’s currently undertaking a PR campaign to trick Woodbury residents into thinking he’s a good guy.

He’s not.

-There is going to be a formal announcement of the developer’s intentions in the not too distant future. So the specifics of how many condos, ect. will be publicly available at that time.

I’ve got a lot of emails about Falkirk. It’s something I’m tracking. But until there’s an official move on the developer’s part, it’s challenging to report on because the facts could change.

Right now I’m relying on reliable sources to let me know what’s happening. But, I’ve been waiting for things to harden a bit before I can cover it properly.

Either way, it’s not good for Woodbury.

What we need in our region is affordable, high density housing that’s available for everyone equally, and that housing should be built in coordinate with all of the municipalities in Orange County. This includes Palm Tree.

Why?

To make sure that the housing is built in an environmentally sustainable way.

Specifically:

-To ensure that there is accessible mass transit to that housing

-That this housing minimizes the aesthetic impact on the rest of the county and community.

-And that the housing makes extensive use of rain water capture and recycling technology to limit its impact on the already strained water situation in Southern Orange County.

I know that’s not a popular opinion, but it’s half of the solution our county needs for the ongoing situations in Monroe, Palm Tree, Woodbury, South Blooming Grove, and Blooming Grove.

The other half of the solution is to move New York State to a system like California where everyone gets a ballot sent to them by mail.

This will kill the bloc vote, because the Rebbe (for example) won’t be able to know how his people vote. Unlike now, where voting is closely monitored and coordinated.

It also makes voting easier, faster, and more accessible.

The trouble is, a certain party in New York State doesn’t want more people to vote.

Can you guess which one it is?

Hint: It’s both of them.

The far-right doesn’t want more people to vote because they will lose every time.

The corporate democrats don’t want more people to vote because than they’ll actually have to work and represent the people instead of cashing in.

What’s Going On With Route 208?

Honestly, it’ll take a book to answer that question. Here’s the brief version:

-Hanhallah wants a connector road that’s been referred to as the “Mangin Bypass.”

The name says it all: It’s a road that would come off 208, cut through Orange County’s Gonzaga Park, and take drivers right into the City of Kiryas Joel.

Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein work for hanhallah.

So, they’re doing the bidding of Rebbe Teitelbaum by doing everything they can, both legal and illegal, to make the Mangin Bypass happen.

This includes paving and creating an unapproved lane on 208, which the Department of Transportation has since ripped up.

This also includes clear cutting and other construction work on Mayor Kalaj’s property, and (illegally) into Gonzaga Park. The work on Orange County’s portion of Gonzaga Park has stopped.

For now.

But that’s only because the County took South Blooming Grove to court.

That case is still ongoing.

Updated at 2:01pm

I may be wrong on this one where it comes to who Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein are specifically working for.

There’s additional information coming in which may indicate another party, and not Rebbe Teitelbaum, is behind what’s happening in Blooming Grove.

So, hang with me here as I do some additional fact checking and information gathering.

If I’m mistaken, I will issue a correction. There’s nothing I take more seriously than factual accuracy. So when someone alerts me to a potential inaccuracy, it’s my top priority to track down and gather further information.

How About 3 College Drive?

This is another one of those properties in Highland Lake Estates where Mr. Richard Cattagio and company know about, but haven’t done anything about.

It is a fully operational synagogue operating within a residential community that does not allow for one to be there.

The basement has a 16 x 20 pool used as a mikva. It’s been alleged that people are charged $20 per hour to use the pool.

There is a Hatzalah command center also in operation from the building. For those unfamiliar, Hatzalah provides volunteer emergency medical services.

There are no permits for either the pool or the Hatzalah operations.

Whether or not this Hatzalah is properly registered and compliant with the state, or whether or not it has received state funding, is not yet known.

Residents have complained about 25-50 cars near daily at or around this property and otherwise blocking traffic.

From there, the story gets a bit more complicated (it involves the Woodbury Fire Inspector, and the bar he operates that’s owned by Wayne Corts.)

I’m currently investigating this as part of the larger story involving Mr. Cattagio.

To be clear: I don’t have a problem with homes being converted into synagogues as long as everyone is safe (the worshippers and the surrounding neighbors.)

I know I sound like a broken record, but I think it’s important we all follow the same set of rules. This isn’t to control or inhibit what people do or don’t do, this is to keep us all safe.

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Ok. So, now you know the format. Paid subscribers, ask your questions below.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, I encourage you to join the community.

It’s $10 a month, which I know is a lot.

But $10 is half of what Netflix is charging these days, and it’s four dollars (or so) more than what you’d spend at Starbucks for a grande Caffe Latte.

We are almost at 100 paying subscribers.

Once we hit 100, The Gazette becomes my day job.

Once we hit 200, I can put all the privacy and safety methods in place that will protect my health and safety while reporting on these topics.

(A lot of you ask about my health and safety. I have a plan. But it’s an expensive plan to do it properly.)

So, those are the current goals.

Will we hit that number? I don’t know. But we can do it with your help.

Ask your questions below …