Technically Speaking, That Was A Public Hearing

News and notes from a wild June 14th South Blooming Grove Board of Trustees meeting and, technically, a public hearing on Fair Housing.

Statistically speaking, readers of The Monroe Gazette prefer the long posts to the shorter posts.

So, while I do hear the occasional complaint about these posts being too long, the traffic to this newsletter’s specific posts suggests the longer posts are preferred.

I’ll work on some kind of system where there’s a short summary at the top, in this very section, for those of you looking to save some time.

Otherwise, strap yourself in for another long read.

Fact Check

As mentioned (and seen, on the left in the picture above), I was at the South Blooming Grove Village Trustee meeting. That’s a Zoom recorder I’m holding. It’s the same one I bring to all of the public meetings when I’m around. I’m glad I brought the recorder with me for reasons that are about to become clear.

If you missed the SBG meeting, the below video comes courtesy of Preserve Blooming Grove:

Much like yesterday’s post with Woodbury, a lot of these items below will likely become future stories.

I am going to share with you only my notes today. From there, I’ll work on developing these a bit.

So, if you’re wondering, “Are you going to say more about the situation with the Route 208 traffic light / Mangin Bypass project?”

The answer is yes.

But I just want to touch on something real quick for a fact check …

When you spot disinformation in the wild, it’s important to call it out.

One thing I’m seeing on Facebook is this insinuation that I’m Haredi, and therefore, can’t be trusted.

I’ve seen this twice now.

The first time, the account looked like a sock puppet (a fake account), saying antisemitic things to wind people up and perhaps gather responses to use in future lawsuits.

This seems to be a common tactic in our area.

For example: Look at this lawsuit in Washingtonville, where hanhallah’s favorite law firm is accusing everyone who lives there of being an antisemite.

(Hanhallah here means “leadership” and the haredi community often uses the term to refer to figures like Aaron and Zalman Teitelbaum and their associates.)

Not for nothing, but if I lived in Washingtonville?

I’d sue Whiteman, Osterman, and Hanna LLP, their attorney Robert Rosborough, and Moche Halpern of Blooming Realty (the plaintiff in the lawsuit) for libeling every resident of the town via a friviolous lawsuit.

You could even use the April DEC Clovewood hearing as proof because, during the first session — a near three-hour call — Mr. Rosborough claims antisemitism as the reason for people’s objections to Clovewood. He was one of very, very few people during these six hours of calls to suggest this.

Just a thought. Do with that what you will, Washingtonville residents.

I hope the picture above clarifies that I’m not haredi. But I also want to say, it shouldn’t matter if I was.

It’s bigoted, and yes, legitimately antisemitic, to assume that all because you’re haredi, you’re somehow untrustworthy.

It’s also wrong to assume that all because someone is haredi, that it means they’re part of some unthinking monolith.

The very root of Judaism is to question things.

What do you think the kids do in the Yeshiva all day?

They discuss and debate the Torah and teachings of the Talmud.

(Yes, it would be nice if some of those Yeshivas spent just as much time on a secular education as they did the Torah, but that’s also a story for another time.)

Now, the difference is — and I think this is where some of the mistrust stems — that if you’re Satmar and a follower of Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum, for example, you’re not going to walk around on the street with a megaphone and call the Rebbe an asshole.

That can, and often does, bring consequences

But in private?

You can say whatever you want about the Rebbe.

And that can and does happen waaaaaaay more than I think a lot of non-haredi believe in Southern Orange County.

It’s the inability to be public about your opinions, especially if they differ from the Rebbe and other members of hanhallah, that causes the non-haredi in the community to not to trust their haredi neighbors. In this instance, the Satmar.

I don’t know how that situation changes. I hope it does. I’ve been banging on that drum since 2014.

Transparency is the key to trust, and since the 1970s, there hasn’t been very much transparency in Southern Orange County on all sides.

So, let’s get to my notes, and as a reminder: Everyone is welcome here. I don’t care if you like Trump. I don’t care if you like Biden. I don’t care if you call her Hashem or call her nothing at all.

Everyone is welcome here as a reader and as a member of the Southern Orange Community.

---

---

1. Why Was This Meeting Held On A Friday Morning?

I’m not going to make fun of anyone’s spelling and grammar, because English is a second language for many members of the South Blooming Grove community.

Also, Hashem knows the spelling and grammar of first versions of Monroe Gazette posts are not always where they should be.

The odds are good you’ll find typos in the first version of this post if you’re an email subscriber.

Now is as good a time as any to suggest you always look at the website version for the latest version of Gazette articles. I spend a good hour or so after these posts go live cleaning up and tweaking things.

So, I’m not about to throw stones over spelling and grammar. You shouldn’t either. Usually, it’s the snobs of the world who get hung up on stuff like that.

You’re not a snob, are you?

But.

I am going to point out that this email above, and this screenshot below from local resident Lori Kronkhyte, came with less than two-hours notice of the June 10th meeting’s original start time of 8pm.

You might be wondering: Does this abrupt cancellation, and Friday morning meeting, violate any rules concerning Open Meeting Law (OML) here in New York State?

Well, I had the same question. Especially because the agenda and links on their Village website were not operational until Thursday morning.

So, I asked.

According to Christen L. Smith, an attorney with New York State’s Committee on Open Government:

“The general notice requirements under § 104 require that meetings scheduled at least one week in advance, be posted and provided to the news media 72 hours before the meeting, identifying the time and place for the meeting.

In our opinion, a public body cannot hold a “meeting” to conduct public business if it will not have a quorum of the membership present.

The Village website shows that a notice was posted on its webpage on June 10^th stating that the meeting was canceled due to lack of a quorum and a special meeting was scheduled for June 14^th at 10:30am at Village Hall.

There is a separate posting from June 11^th with the “special board meeting” information and notice. We cannot form an opinion regarding whether this notice is consistent with the requirements of the OML without knowing more information, but the posting suggests that it likely was consistent with the notice requirements.

Additionally, the OML does not require public bodies to create and follow meeting agendas. However, § 103(e) would require that any agenda created in anticipation of the meeting be posted twenty-fours before the meeting.”

There you have it. No identifiable violation based on the information I shared with them (and with you here in this section.)

It was correctly pointed out that village residents were provided with NO time to process the information that they would receive during this hearing.

Now, just a quick nit picky thing: Shavuot this year was held on June 11th to the 13th.

Monday night’s meeting was NOT affected by the holiday.

So, what was the reason for the lack of quorum ?

Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein were looking to pull a fast one …

2. “It’s Not Our Job” (To Have a Diverse Community)

Yes. Technically speaking, the Village of South Blooming Grove had a public hearing on Friday morning concerning Fair Housing and the Community Block Grant program.

Basically, in order to be eligible for a Community Block Grant from Orange County, South Blooming Grove has to pass a resolution that affirms their adherence to the federal Fair Housing Act (the FHA.)

You can see the Town of Chester follow the proper procedure here for the same Community Block Grant here.

The SBG public hearing lasted just under fifteen minutes.

There was little to no discussion among members of the board, and the Mayor, concerning the Fair Housing Resolution or how the Village intended to assist in making sure the Fair Housing Act would be upheld in the area.

In fact, later during the proper meeting — which followed the close of the public hearing — SBG resident Chis Maderia had this exchange with Isaac Ekstein.

Mr. Ekstein, you’ll recall, is essentially running these meetings with Joel Stern despite not being an elected official or even a member of the SBG Board. (I picked up the whole exchange on my recorder, as did Bonnie Rum of Preserve Blooming Grove in her video recording.)

Chris Maderia: “I’m concerned about all these fees, what’s making it attractive to bring new residents into this village if we keep showing people that they got to pay fees, and fees, and fees, and fees.”

Ekstein: “So you’re trying to preserve the village so nobody has to come in, so it’s just for the people who live here. That’s what you’re trying to do, right?”

Maderia: “No. Well, I do want a diverse group of people …”

Ekstein: (interrupting) “That’s not our job. … That’s not our job.” (Emphasis added.)

At this point, I accused Mr. Ekstein of trying to slander Mr. Maderia by insinuating he didn’t want people moving into the community.

I also felt he was about to play the antisemitism card, so I beat him to it by saying it sounded like he was accusing Mr. Maderia of antisemitism.

This has been Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein’s go to tactic whenever speaking with long time residents of the community: Shut down discussion by accusing residents of antisemitism.

One final note: A question was raised later as to whether or not the Clovewood developers would have to pay some of these fees, and Mayor Kalaj immediately moved to shut down that discussion. “Public comment is over” he said.

Can’t imagine why that would be …

Mr. Stern, who works for Jacob Gold — Keen Equities second largest investor — Could have answered this, but chose not to do so. He also chose not to recuse himself from this discussion on Fair Housing given his direct connection to the Clovewood developers.

He probably took his cue from Mr. Ekstein, who, I asked directly why he hasn’t recused himself from discussion concerning 1 Roanoke Drive, and why he intentionally violated New York State municipal law by not disclosing his relationship with Mr. Schvimmer on the forms submitted for the project.

Mr. Ekstein, who had a smart ass response to everything at this meeting, was strangely silent when told that he was caught red-handed breaking the law.

“Fair Housing and The Village of South Blooming Grove is An Oxymoron”

At a public hearing on affirming support for, and committing to uphold the federal Fair Housing Act, Isaac Ekstein — who is a defacto mayor of the Village of South Blooming Grove — said, “It’s not our job.”

After the meeting, Trustee Guttman would also tell me that it’s not the Board’s job to tell private property owners who they can and can’t rent their property to.

So, now you have the de facto mayor, and an elected Village Trustee, stating their lack of interest in enforcing the Fair Housing Act.

On a related note, it was discussed during the meeting that Mr. Ekstein and Mr. Stern’s fellow member of the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove, Moche Halpern, had stated a desire to knock down all the buildings on Houston Avenue because “our” community was expanding.

You’ll note he didn’t say “the community.” He said, “our community.”

Mr. Halpern, the same guy who currently has a large mortgage company and the FBI investigating his real estate transactions. (I pointed this investigation out at the meeting.)

Mr. Halpern, and Mr. Lazer Shvimmer, whom also do not comply with Fair Housing’s rules and regulations by marketing properties exclusively to Yiddish-speaking customers and nobody else.

Another violation of the FHA.

Mr. Halpern and Shvimmer’s Blooming Realty doesn’t often, if ever, list properties on an MLS which is also how the community often learns of property for sale. (You can’t just NOT opt-out of an MLS without approval from the local association of realtors first.)

I’ll be in touch with the Attorney General’s Division of Human Rights office on Monday morning about these, and other, housing-related shenanigans.

The FHA was discussed so little during this hearing that a lot of residents were under impression that the Fair Housing Hearing was not actually held.

The majority of time was instead spent talking about the Block grant itself and what the money could be put toward.

For example: The water is bad in South Blooming Grove. As Chris Maderia pointed out, Iron and Manganese levels are currently unacceptable.

Can the Village use the funding from this grant to help residents pay for water filtration systems? (I didn’t hear an answer to this one.)

The Board then closed the hearing and passed a resolution (not available online) stating they are complying with fair housing rules and regulations.

But …

If you look at the rules for conducting a public hearing, according to New York State (see Page 8), the odds are good most of these steps were not followed.

What does that mean?

Residents of South Blooming Grove could file suit, and potentially have overturned, decisions and actions made at SBG meetings and public hearings when these rules are not followed properly.

Do with that information what you will, residents of South Blooming Grove.

3. The Actual Meeting

During the “public hearing” Al Fusco, who led the discussion concerning the block grant, and not Fair Housing, mentioned that Orange County denied SBG this grant last year.

I asked if this denial had anything to do with the lawsuit between Orange County and Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein’s illegal road that they wanted to put through Gonzaga Park, which is owned by the county.

Mr. Fusco denied this, but clearly, I touched a nerve.

Good. That’s what I was there to do. (More on that in a future post.)

It’s worth noting for the public, since the New York State Comptroller’s office has continued to refuse to do so, that the Village of South Blooming Grove is still under an audit.

The Comptroller’s office won’t comment on this beyond stating an audit is ongoing when asked by The Monroe Gazette.

The Comptroller’s office also seems uninterested in sharing news of this audit in their regularly scheduled email newsletter.

So, why the Comptroller’s office is happy to tell people about their audit of Poestenkill (a real place that exists) in their most recent edition of that newsletter, they appear to be unhappy to tell people about their audit of South Blooming Grove.

Put another way, I’d be a little surprised if Orange County gives South Blooming Grove any additional grants like this one.

The Traffic Light on 208

The Mayor, and Joel Stern, claim that the Village did nothing wrong with screwing around with the traffic light and left shoulder on 208. The Mayor accused politicians for attacking the village over its behavior, but of course, did not name any names.

A key question about the 208 situation is why the Village won’t simply donate the land needed by the Department of Transportation to improve conditions on the road, which is what DOT has asked them for.

The only (sort of) answer residents got was that the process would take too long. That was according to Mr. Ekstein.

“Too long” for what though?

During his comments, Stern would accuse the DOT and other parties for interfering with the Village’s plans to construct “the Mangin bypass” road, which would basically put a road through Orange County owned parkland in order to connect 208 directly with Kiryas Joel.

Mr. Stern spoke as if the Mangin bypass was already a done deal.

Mr. Stern Wants His Own Police Force

At the very end of the meeting, we found out why it was really being held at 10:30am on a Friday morning.

Much like he did with the fire company, Mr. Stern began making a statement accusing the Town of Blooming Grove police of being understaffed and underfunded, which has led to an increase in response times.

He did not, perhaps understanding that his every movie is now being watched, accuse the police of antisemitism.

It’s worth noting here that I have 55 pages of police reports involving the Town of Blooming Grove police and Mr. Joel Stern (and Isaac Ekstein.)

So, it’s safe to say here that Mr. Stern would have more than one reason to want to replace the Town police with a Village police force he controls.

First, so he can do whatever he wants, like steal DVRs.

Second, so that like the new fire company, he can use it as a slush fund for the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove.

Whom, I’ll remind you, is not an IRS recognized not-for-profit — in fact, the IRS is currently looking into them — and whom meets the FBI and Southern Poverty Law Center’s definition of a hate group.

Given that Mr. Ekstein, who is the president of the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove, has now been caught in a recording saying “it’s not our job” to help make South Blooming Grove a welcoming community for a diverse group of people, that FBI and SPL definition is looking more and more accurate every day.

I reached out to the Town of Blooming Grove Police Department, and Town Supervisor Jeroloman, to see what they have to say on Mr. Stern’s false and misleading statements about the local police.

Other Issues To Look Into

And finally, I want to quickly highlight other items that came up during the meeting. I’m looking into all of these as well.

-Nora Murphy. On April 4th, I filed a FOIL request with the Village of South Blooming Grove concerning Mrs. Murphy.

During the Clovewood Public Hearing, Mrs. Murphy introduced herself as an attorney for the Village of South Blooming Grove, and spoke in favor of the permits being requested.

I wanted to know who she was and how much she was getting paid by the Village.

11 days later, which is more than the five day time limit a municipality is supposed to reply to a FOIL request, Village Clerk Kerry Dougherty wrote me back to acknowledge receipt of the request.

On May 6th, a full month from the original request, Village Clerk Kerry Dougherty wrote asking for more time (20 business days) to provide the following information:

I am requesting the contract that was signed by the village, the total amount invoiced for Mrs. Murphy's services, and emails sent from Mr. Kalaj, Mr. Stern, and Mr. Ekstein sent from their personal and professional devices concerning hiring Mrs. Murphy sent from 1/1/24 to the present.

I then followed-up on June 7th with a formal appeal, and notified the Village that failure to comply will result in an Article 78.

During Friday’s meeting, Mr. Joel Stern asked the Village to have Mrs. Nora Murphy investigate the potential for creating a police department specifically for the Village.

-Mr. Fusco seems eager to lesson the requirement that the Village regularly monitor the Merriewold Dam. Currently the Village needs to inspect it once a year and prepare an analysis every 5 to ten years. They are currently doing repair work on the dam.

Given the increase in flooding in our area, and the torrential downpours, it’s VERY concerning to hear Mr. Fusco suggest that not having to monitor the dam every year would “save the Village money.”

Maybe it will, but you’ll pay for those “savings” later if there’s a full blown emergency.

-There is a new, near $50M sewer facility planned for Round Hill Road.

Mr. Ekstein, falsely, claimed that this new facility would not produce any sort of smell, but this is scientifically impossible.

He did not specify how big the facility would be, or if it would be as large as Orange County Sewer District 1, which is over capacity right now.

In fact, there was ZERO mention of the Orange County Sewer District 1 situation during this meeting.

-Fusco also did not clarify how people living on fixed incomes in the community are supposed to pay for all these new fees being introduced, including the potential for an increase in the price of current sewer fees to help pay for the new facility.

-Our friends at Darkei Yosher are at it again. Some of you may remember the bus company’s bad behavior in Monroe on Hawxhurst road. That bad behavior, specifically with Bus #105 was again called out at this meeting. The Village did not offer any sort of solution as to how to help manage this problem. Once again suggesting that, if faced with making sure landlords and property owners are adhering to Fair Housing, they would not do so.

On a related note, local noise ordinances are ALSO not being followed, which prompted one resident to say with exhaustion, “We are violating codes all the time.”

People are also not being told when roads are being closed (because only the Yiddish speaking residents are getting that information from the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove) and a clean-up crew from the Village was suggested for such large events.

“Who’s Zalman Teitelbaum”

We’ll get more into this one soon. But I had a piece of information that I could not confirm. And since nobody at SBG answers questions from the media, or residents, I decided to toss it out there to see how Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein would respond.

After mentioning Zalman Teitelbaum, Mr. Ekstein immediately responded, mockingly, “Who’s that?”

When I mentioned Sgan Rosh Hakuhl, Avrum Ber Jacobowitz, He and Mr. Stern got defensive and, Mr. Stern, was immediately on his phone texting someone.

Who’s Mr. Jacobowitz?

We’re about to find out.

More on everything mentioned in this article very soon.

Happy Father’s Day to those celebrating.