Tough Cop's Wife Dorey Houle Goes Soft on Crime with Budget Vote
Dorey Houle, Tony Cardone, and Sal Scancarello voted to approve a deeply flawed 2025 Town of Monroe budget that will raise your taxes while starving critical services and jeopardizing public safety.
Above: Town of Monroe Councilwoman Mary Bingham (ironically seated on the far right) points to the only other person in the room with a functioning brain. The screenshot comes from the November 18th, 2024, Town of Monroe Board meeting. That other person with a functioning brain? It was Village of Monroe Mayor, Neil Dwyer.
Currently suing the Town of Monroe, by the way.
The Why won’t surprise you after you read the rest of today’s story.
You know what really grinds my gears?
(Listen, you all missed the “Friends” reference yesterday, so I’m going with a “Family Guy” one today. The “Friends” joke was the headline.)
Not only did the Town of Monroe raise your taxes during the November 18th meeting, but they set it up so that — assuming Supervisor Tony Cardone moves on due to concerns about his health — whoever takes over as Supervisor will have to raise your taxes again.
And they all sat there and laughed about it. Because Dorey Houle is going to bank on you forgetting about this come election time, Scancarello isn’t up for re-election in November ‘25, and Cardone will be gone. Probably laughing his ass off at you from Florida or wherever it is evil old people go when they’re done playing people for suckers.
There’s one exception.
Mary Bingham. She wasn’t laughing at you and the financial predicament the Town of Monroe just created for you.
Mary deserves all the credit in the world for being the sole voice of dissent at this meeting. (Councilwoman Richardson’s plane was delayed and she would miss the meeting. Despite previously allowing Supervisor Cardone to join a meeting remotely, the same courtesy was not extended to Councilwoman Richardson, for reasons that are about to become apparent.)
And the worst part? At 27:30 in the video below, Cardone remarks at how quick the meeting was. “It was a 47-minute meeting,” he said. (The video is only twenty-seven minutes long because there was an executive session that was not recorded. It’s not clear what happened during that executive session, but there’s a non-zero chance Tony Cardone said something racist during it.)
You know why this meeting was so short?
Because Cardone, Houle, and Scancarello, over Mary Bingham and Maureen Richardson’s objections, approved their deeply flawed budget. No time was taken to discuss the objections. They just did what they wanted to do.
This included passing up an opportunity to better fund the Village of Monroe police department and allow them to enter into a IMA (inter-municipal agreement) that would let them patrol all of Monroe and not just the Village. Such an arrangement would be a huge win for public safety and help take a more pro-active measure in fighting crime.
You know, the same thing Dorey Houle just ran on saying she’d do in her State Senate campaign?
That’s right. “Tough Cop’s wife” Dorey Houle is soft on crime.
This is despite spending nearly $400,000 to convince you otherwise.
And not only that, Houle’s refusal to explore an IMA with the Village of Monroe cuts off a potential revenue source for both the Village PD AND the Town of Monroe. So not only is Dorey Houle soft on crime, but she helped to defund the police.
See for yourself:
I have a ton of Woodbury stuff to cover, but before we get to that tomorrow, I’d like to direct your attention to something.
Facebook is a terrible platform to get your message out, because you have to manage the algorithms appropriately — and I can tell from observation that very few people around here are good at that. Plus if you’re in a private group, unless someone wants to take some screenshots, that’s about as far as your message can go.
So.
I thought Councilwoman Richardson raised some excellent points about the 2025 Town of Monroe Budget. I also think she’d be a great Supervisor, and it’s a real shame that she’s had virtually zero to do since Cardone is a fascist and rules unilaterally. As you’ll see soon, Mr. Cardone can be seen making severe, rash, and unilateral decisions without consultation with any of his Councilmembers as it relates to the Town of Monroe’s relationship with the City of Kiryas Joel.
But for now, I wanted to share here what Councilwoman Richardson had to say about the 2025 Town of Monroe Budget. And I want you to consider that the three bozos who voted to approve the budget couldn’t be bothered to put together as thorough and thoughtful an explanation about why they did what they did.
That’s why all three need to go. With Houle and Cardone first out the door next November.
Memo: Councilwoman Richardson on the 2025 Town of Monroe Budget
As a Council Member for the Town of Monroe, I must express my serious concerns regarding the 2025 preliminary budget. First, the fact that I am forced to analyze a preliminary version from previous weeks on the night before a budget vote reveals an abject failure in leadership and violation of the principles of town governance, as well as state mandated Open Meetings Law. The finalized draft budget should be posted for public view 24 hours in advance of the planned vote. It should have also been provided to Council Members for a reasonable review period. Monroe is the only town in the region which failed to hold a budget workshop meeting. After careful analysis, this budget demonstrates both fiscal irresponsibility and a failure to address critical town needs.
The proposed use of fund balance, combined with optimistic and potentially unrealistic revenue projections, creates significant future financial risk. Most notably, the projected increase in sales tax revenue from $265,000 to $1,080,000 in the A Fund lacks any substantiating economic basis and may violate the intention of allocation of revenue between B and A funds. It appears that the Supervisor's assertion that he can freely allocate these revenues between town-wide and part-town funds may contradict New York State law, and tax code which requires fair and proportional distribution based on services provided to village and non-village residents, order of operations, and population size. This type of aggressive revenue assumption and potentially improper allocation methodology creates both financial and legal exposure for the town.
While drawing down reserves, this budget simultaneously fails to address several critical issues facing our community:
Emergency Services: Our volunteer EMS has explicitly petitioned for funding to support at least one paid shift, citing increasingly difficult recruitment and training demands. Their request reflects a regional crisis in volunteer emergency services, yet this budget provides no support for this essential public safety need. The cost of inaction here could be measured in lives, not just dollars.
Public Safety: The budget makes no provision for addressing law enforcement needs outside our village boundaries, the village police force is managed by and limited to the village. Meanwhile, changes in staffing and resource allocation of the NYS Troopers has led to a marked downtick in issuances for court appearances, leading to a significant net profit loss for the courts. As well as a significant difference in police presence in our community to prevent nuisance and low level impulse crime. No effort was made to explore cost-effective solutions such as intermunicipal agreements with the Villages of Monroe and Harriman, a Safety Officer, or potentially implementing a daytime force similar to successful models in neighboring communities like Chester up until their fulltime force was implemented around 2007. The town of Chester is the most similar demographically and pays approximately $3 million for their fulltime force, but they have a lower population. Simple enforcement measures could generate $103,000-$463,000 in annual revenue while improving community safety. More intricate measures would need to be mapped financially.
Code Enforcement: Despite ongoing issues, there is no allocation for desperately needed code enforcement officers. Two part-time officers would cost approximately $76,000-$110,000 annually, an investment that would pay for itself while improving community standards. Constituents complain that current violations go unenforced, affecting both safety and property values. The Building Department remains inundated with day to day tasks and their capacity for actively patrolling for code violations is limited. In order to bring in both more code enforcement and court revenue, the town should have explored employing more part time code enforcement officers (or whatever entity can legally issue court appearance tickets) to focus solely on violations, which would directly correspond to an increase in fines collected. It is illegal and unethical to request that court clerks and elected judges change their fee schedule to increase court revenue. The punishment allocated must directly fit the crime, not the town’s budgetary needs. The court staff deserve performance based and cost of living raises in accordance with what should be written and consistently implicated policy for management in overseeing employee performance based on their actual clerical duties.
Personnel Management: The budget reflects disturbing inconsistencies in salary allocations, with increases ranging from 5.99% to 82.06% without clear criteria or justification. The Highway Superintendent salary was intentionally lowered before the election of Bill Brown vs. Patterson. His salary had to subsequently be raised 9% simply to exceed an employee in his own department. Aside from questionable allocations, some positions received substantial raises despite creating significant legal exposure through policy violations, while critical positions remain undercompensated. The Clerk’s illegal implementation of the “blanket 90-day FOIL policy” could, at minimum, cost the town $6,000 per FOIL request. The calculated legal liability would require the number of FOILs illegally responded to with the improper policy information, even after being informed by the attorney and a councilperson several times on the public record. That plaintiff’s legal fees would be judged as compensated and this does not include any additional fines the judge may have ordered as punishment, simply the legal fees owed per Article 78 filed. She has received a 6% raise. In addition, the intentional withholding of filing "165" HR complaints by the Supervisor's confidential secretary and the intentional obfuscation and denial of complaints to this position, which was defined by the town attorney as obligated to manage personnel records created a horror show wherein untold amounts of legal liability have been assumed by the town. This person appears to be receiving a 15% raise when the normal standard for secretary position raises in the public sector is 2%. It should surprise no one that she is a longtime friend of the Supervisor. This arbitrary approach in salary increase to statically held and mainly desirable positions, creates potential discrimination claims and morale issues as we have already incurred by an employee before they submitted their resignation.
Revenue Management: The town continues to lose money on assets like the movie theater, where even basic fee collection and contract oversight mechanisms are absent. While we pay over $35,000 annually in just taxes and maintaining this asset, we fail to collect the basic fees outlined in our contract established to offset these costs. My analysis of the contract and the lack of revenue was submitted to the town attorney and Supervisor’s office in April, yet no effort to collect or compensate for revenue loss was addressed until October. No policy, solution, or lead was pursued before budget discussions were underway. The board agreed to go forward only if costs were generally neutralized so that the town did not continue to lose money on a worthy community asset which benefits Monroe’s youth, culture, and general Downtown appeal. The theater has never hit its break point and the Supervisor’s overly optimistic revenue projection is uninformed. While COVID mortally wounded the venture, there is no guarantee that it will recover and no assistance or marketing efforts have begun. The fundamental culture change in how people consume media, i.e. streaming, may permanently render the negotiated terms of our contract unsuccessful and unsustainable. This conversation did not meet the outlined criteria for discussion in Executive Session and violated Open Meetings Law when it was deliberated on outside the eyes of the public, who need to be the ultimate deciding factor on which way we proceed. If a theater renovation is sought, it could potentially draw in more customers, with reduced and optimized hours for late night viewers, and a marketing campaign pushed through town-wide channels as our fates are intertwined, as well as more charitable functions such as themed film festivals accompanied by themed displays during contracted “community days.” The town could theoretically invest more time and energy into the venture to see it ultimately fail due to “sunken cost syndrome.” It is my opinion that a legal letter should be drafted immediately demanding compensation for our lost revenue from the parent company which was supposed to provide us legal security rather than making this deal with one untested business owner, Flagship Cinema as a franchise should be put on notice to recoup losses. The response should dictate our path forward of what is possible. No action has been taken.
Solar Farm Utility Costs and Accounting: In 2015, the Town of Monroe opted in to Remote Net Metering from the 813 Lakes Road Solar Farm, setting up the "Town of Monroe Solar Farm LLC" employing one representative from Allbright Solar to manage the solar array and signed a Power Purchase Agreement with OnForce. In 2018, the Power Purchase Agreement was updated with SolRiver. Today, we purchase the solar energy produced at 813 Lakes Road from our commercial solar array, owned and operated by, SolRiver, an outside entity as per the terms of our contract and typical of RNM. Our current contracted rate is .10 $/kWh which increases by 2% yearly. As measured in the month of August, the array produced approximately 238,337 kWh of electricity. The solar array was designed with too large a capacity for our electricity usage. Fundamentally, there is an immediate net profit loss between the .10 $/ kWh and the price that Orange and Rockland honors our energy generation at, which is approximately .09 $/kWh or the monthly retail price of electricity typical for O&R. While the price we pay to generate two-hundred-thousand kWh of electricity per year will increase year after year, the energy market will honor our generation at lower and lower rates as the green energy market expands. The fact that we are forced to buy an excessive amount of electricity and have it "banked" as credit with O&R is causing our utility costs to be disproportionate with use. The satellite accounts listed under our legal entity ability are limited to town-ownership only accounts, wherein O&R has previously denied honoring the Village of Monroe's eligibility for solar credit usage. We are limited in methods of using the increasing banked credit, which is currently at approximately $254,000. This is an unusually high amount which alarms all solar and energy specialists. Remote Net Metering no longer exists, as it was an inherently limited and flawed system. We are grandfathered in to this obsolete and ill-fitting mechanism for our municipality. Some of the symptoms include the fact that our Water Districts, as pointed out by Councilwoman Bingham, are listed as satellite accounts. While these accounts are properly and accurately metered, individually billed and monitored, and appropriately charged delivery fees by O&R ... they are being charged a portion of the SolRiver energy production cost as a direct percentage of the overcapacity based on usage. By all legal accounting measures, our accounting team is properly dividing the charges according to the only way that Remote Net Metering allows. However, RNM was obviously not meant to be used in this manner, as it ignores the types of town accounts encompassed, how they are funded, and is not flexible in the carryover credit charged. What we are witnessing is the consequence of an ill-fitting solar delivery method and "sunken-cost" syndrome, wherein the current administration inherited the ill-fitting RNM and did not want to lose the existing credit. However, if this system remains unmodified and unmitigated, we will lose substantial amounts of money during the contract period and potentially lose an estimated one million dollars in solar credits if allowed to run its current course. The Water Districts, if legally eligible, should be held to a new accounting policy wherein they are charged a 1 to 1 usage rate for SolRiver % allocation. Only charge them the SolRiver .10 $ / kWh for exactly the amount of energy they use, and, if legally allowed, exclude them from the SolRiver carryover credit as they have already bought as many credits as they can ever use. Because other satellite accounts are vastly different in terms of funding structure, i.e. county and town assistance, I agree that this system is not working for a myriad of reasons for the Water Districts. I have pursued guidance with NYSERDA, the Public Service Commission, and Hudson Valley Regional Council to discuss a different credit structure and have not yet gotten exact figures regarding calculating potential credit loss immediately upon conversion to a new crediting system versus long term extreme losses. With any luck, I hope someone will be able to exempt us from the profit loss entirely, but that is unlikely. Another argument is pursuing an intermunicipal cooperation that qualifies our villages and us as the same legal entity for their eligibility under O&R as satellite accounts. I have a number of leads that I am pursuing actively, however the town administration remains uncooperative in illegally blocking my use of consultants — idiotically citing that Supervisor Cardone is the Chief Executive Officer which does not pertain to the legislative branch of the town, nor would it interfere in any way with my legislative abilities and rights which are equivalent. The budget and this sentiment reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of government and its functions, indicating that someone else with municipal specific experience should be overseeing our revenues, budget, and contracts.
Consultant Use: Illegally limiting use of consultants to himself is stealing from the tax payer. We are not receiving the full value out of services such as Millennium Strategies grant company. What once was a shared cost between the Villages of Monroe and Harriman with the Town, has now shifted to fall squarely on town only tax payers. The company used to cooperate with all stakeholders and department heads of each municipality, but now cites "confusion" when dealing with only 5 legislators on the town board. This was simply a political excuse to limit the number of users to the political majority, which unduly enjoys the favor of the Supervisor in the illegal and discriminatory "policy" for use, which is arbitrary and capricious. Employees and department heads have expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of energy the company requires to apply for a grant, expressing that they can just do it themselves. The new employees seem to lack experience in municipal grant application and do require constant oversight by the town. There is a reason both villages have pulled out of the grant contract. The reasoning of Cardone to continue with it is fundamentally flawed-- citing that Harriman's police force was funded by a grant secured by the company and that it "paid for itself." This is only beneficial to Harriman residents, as their police are limited to Harriman taxpayers and Harriman jurisdiction. Harriman did not continue their contract with Millennium. Illegally limiting the use of the town attorney as part of a consultant use limitation also presents budgeting issues. According to the NYS Comptroller we are entitled to a town attorney and a deputy town attorney, both appointed positions. Feerick Nugent McCartney simply contracts with the town and entities from the firm represent different branches of the town. They simultaneously represent the Town Board and the Ethics Committee— meaning that in their advisory role in Ethics complaints lobbied against the Board majority— they represent the same board which may hire and fire their firm at any time. They are not beholden to any town-imposed ethics, as they petitioned and oversaw the removal of those guidelines within the last two years. There have been verifiably false, intentionally misleading, deceptive, and damaging attempts to limit the legislative ability of members of the town board by Brian Nugent. There is no motivation by him to serve the town at large, nor obligation to do so under his consultant position. He outlines a false use policy based on the Supervisor's whims, however, if he is a consultant then legally the members of the board have the option to use other legal counsel as consultants and individual board members are entitled to budget for allotted use. The time one contracts out with a consultant should be measured in dollars. Not, by the Supervisor's feelings — that he is our boss when he is our legislative equal and his executive ability does not extend to oversight of Board Members, nor does it extend to unilateral enforcement. Council Members, under this world order are entitled to individual budget lines.
Short Term Rentals: We need to pursue fees via the STR/Hotel/Motel Tax legislation that I have been pursuing for months. We cannot accept a drain on community resources for commercial use while we experience large revenue losses and not tax STRs that take homes away from families and responsible management by those personally invested in our communities. They create code violations and take a significant management effort. We need to tax at the maximum 5% and I recommend allocating it to the general fund to pay ourselves back for property acquisition.
Court Operations: The budget inappropriately ties court staff compensation to revenue generation while providing no enforcement mechanism to support court operations. This creates both practical and ethical issues regarding judicial independence.
Process Concerns: In violation of Open Meetings Law, this budget was presented without proper notice or review time, and without the standard workshop process common to all our neighboring communities. This marks the second consecutive occurrence of such violations, where Council Members received the budget on the same day we were expected to vote, in the same hour we were meant to vote on it, suggesting a pattern of avoiding proper scrutiny.
Most concerning is the absence of any strategic planning to address these issues. While significant funds are being allocated to land acquisition, with concerning debt service ratios approaching 8.05% and substantial BAN interest payments, basic operational needs and public safety concerns remain unaddressed. This represents a fundamental misalignment of priorities with community needs.
I cannot support a budget that combines aggressive use of reserves with optimistic revenue projections while failing to address fundamental town needs. I recommend a thorough revision that:
* Provides realistic revenue projections and proper fund allocations
* Addresses critical safety, emergency service, and enforcement needs
* Establishes clear personnel policies
* Implements proper asset management
* Ensures transparent process and adequate review time
* Creates strategic plans for future needs
Our community deserves careful financial stewardship that addresses current needs while planning responsibly for the future. This budget, as presented, fails to meet that standard. I vote NO.
Houle, Cardone, and Scancarello did not reply to requests for comment about why they’re helping to defund the Village police.