Why Verizon Buying Frontier is Bad for Orange County & Other Local Questions Answered
In this week's mailbag, we answer questions about the sabbath sirens, why the Democrats are supporting the friend of an arsonist, Governor Hochul's Chinese spy, and Verizon's purchase of Frontier.
Howdy,
I don’t like posting on the weekend. Traffic sucks. However, a lot is happening, and I don’t do this for my own benefit. My bank account can verify that one.
So today, we’re going to answer some reader questions. But before we do, if you live in Monroe, I’d like to direct your attention to this story.
One of two things are happening here:
Monroe Town Supervisor Tony Cardone knew about contamination of the Village of Monroe’s Well #4 — attributed to the Salt Shed built by the City of Kiryas Joel in 2020, allegedly without permission or approval — and didn’t bother to tell anyone about it until it was politically advantageous to do so.
Town Supervisor Tony Cardone is lying about a contamination of the Village of Monroe’s Well #4 to extort votes from Hanhallah (Grand Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum, City Administrator Gedayla Segedin, and others) to help Dorey Houle in her campaign for the State Senate.
Those are your choices. Since Supervisor Tony Cardone has refused to answer any questions on the matter, if you want answers, the next Town of Monroe Board meeting is on September 16th at 7pm over at Town Hall on 1465 Orange Turnpike.
In the scenario where the Supervisor lies, you, as a taxpayer, would be on the hook for any frivolous lawsuits filed against the City of Kiryas Joel.
In the scenario where the Well is contaminated, people’s lives have been put in danger from the Supervisor’s deliberate inaction, because Well #4 produces a lot of water for Village of Monroe residents.
Since the Supervisor, much like the current administration in South Blooming Grove, does not reply to emails or phone calls, you are encouraged to come to the meeting and ask him directly during public comment.
He’ll lie, but there are two Town Councilmembers — unlike in the Town of Woodbury and South Blooming Grove — who will help you fact-check the Supervisor.
Not to be outdone in Southern Orange County’s race to the bottom of government corruption, Woodbury has problems of its own.
Specifically, the Town of Woodbury’s governing body has become exactly like South Blooming Grove’s governing body: Completely corrupt, inept, lacking vision, and possessing no capability of governing or plans of governing beyond offering their people bullshit and grievance.
And remember: These are the people State Senator James G. Skoufis wants to put in charge of all of Woodbury.
Don’t believe me?
Here is Skoufis's ringing endorsement of who he wants to run a unified Board that governs the Town and Village of Woodbury. Worth noting: Skoufis has refused on multiple occasions to meet with the Mayor of Woodbury to discuss the issues his proposed legislation is meant to address.
Something to remember this November:
Above: Apparently, there’s no time for State Senator Skoufis to visit South Blooming Grove or attend any meetings there personally, but there’s plenty of time to pal around with the corrupt Woodbury Town Board for a fundraiser. As Maya Angelou said, when people tell you who they are, believe them.
In the case of Woodbury, despite vocal public opposition, the Town Board voted to change their Town Ethics Code. This was done, in their own words, mind you, so that they could hire their children and pay them with your money.
The Town Board decided to tell the public that they had difficulty finding applicants to work at the animal shelter, which is absolutely not true.
Maybe the long trail of resignations from the animal shelter since January should hint to Woodbury residents that there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.
The truth is, there were applicants whom the Town rejected. The Part-Time Town Supervisor with the Full-Time Pay, Kathryn Luciani, just wanted to use your money and the Town’s resources as an employment program for her son. All at the expense of the animals the shelter is charged with caring for. This mismanagement at the shelter and the inability to keep the people working there who DO get hired, spells trouble for our four-legged friends.
Need I say more than “Kitten in a dryer”? Are we all just going to pretend THAT didn’t happen under Supervisor Luciani’s watch?
The Town of Woodbury should not be allowed to continue operating the shelter for the sake of the animals and for the people working there.
Enough is enough.
That, of course, brings us to South Blooming Grove.
Before we get to our reader questions, just a reminder that tomorrow (Monday, September 9th) at 8 pm at Village Hall (811 Route 208), there will be another meeting of the Village of South Blooming Grove Board of Trustees.
At the last meeting, de facto Mayor Joel Stern told a litany of lies in just sixteen minutes that required two days of fact-checking.
You can find the first fact-check post here.
You can find the second fact-check post here.
As of this writing, the Town of Blooming Grove Police Department has not responded to the questions sent to them for the third fact-check post.
I am hopeful to have those answers — as well as the completed FOILs involving the speed tests that Mr. Stern referenced — in the next week or so. This will allow me to complete my fact check of Mr. Stern.
Well, at least from his previous round of bullshit. I’m sure he’ll say something tomorrow that’ll keep me just as busy for most of this week.
I also need to finish reading through all of the FOIL-ed documents I’ve received from Orange County concerning the water issues in South Blooming Grove.
I will submit a FOIL request to the Village on that specific issue as soon as possible.
Unlike the last time I sent in a FOIL, or like the many times that residents send in FOILs and don’t receive a response from the Village Clerk — some residents have been waiting over a year for answers — there will be consequences for the Village if they choose not to comply with this request.
More details on that soon enough.
But for now, let’s get to your questions …
Reader Questions From Across Southern Orange County:
Question: If Wayne Corts is accused of arson by one Woodbury resident and participating in other crimes, why are the Woodbury Democrats running on platforms to support Corts and his plan to convert the Falkirk Golf Course into condos exclusively for Haredi residents?
Answer: Sounds like something someone should ask Tyler Etzel Jr. — Democratic challenger for a seat on the Woodbury Village Board of Trustees this fall — given his close connection with Mr. Corts. As you’ll recall, Mr. Etzel Jr. sold ACE farms via Corts to Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum’s land-owning arm.
That’s a fact.
I have an idea: Mr. Etzel Jr. likes to appear at Woodbury Village Board meetings. I think someone should ask him during public comment to explain his association with Mr. Corts, and whether or not Mr. Etzel Jr. supports annexing ACE Farms into Kiryas Joel.
For the record, here is Mr. Etzel Jr. at a 2022 presentation delivered by Mr. Corts, about his plans for converting the golf course into condos, which Etzel voiced support for at the presentation.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
Usually, being associated with an alleged arsonist would be enough to disqualify someone from public office.
But there’s nothing normal about what’s happening around Southern Orange County.
So, don’t let Etzel sit there and go unquestioned.
If he’s running for public office, and he’s using public comment to spout misinformation — which he has verifiably done at previous Village Board meetings — then the least he can do is answer a couple of important questions publicly prior to the election.
Question: Would Term Limits or other consequences change things around here?
Answer: Consequences. With a Capital C.
I’m not going to speculate on term limits specifically because I simply do not know, and have not studied, their effectiveness in limiting corruption. I’ll look into this.
I can say that there is a complete and total lack of consequences for anyone in Southern Orange County.
Monroe Town Supervisor, Tony Cardone, can either lie/cover-up a known contamination impacting the Village of Monroe’s water supply, and nothing happens to him.
Woodbury Town Supervisor, Kathryn Luciani, can give herself a full-time salary for a part-time job, hire her son to work for the Town, and amend the Town Ethics Code so that the other Board members could do the same. (Again, their words, not mine.)
In the Village of Woodbury, Trustee James Freiband can spout misinformation, get corrected on that misinformation, ignore the correction, and willfully continue to spew misinformation without any sort of consequence. And, by the way, some of that intentional misinformation from Freiband can open up the Village to lawsuits from parties such as the New York State Thruway Authority.
Guess who winds up paying for that lawsuit?
You.
In South Blooming Grove, the actual Mayor is nowhere to be found, while Joel Stern — the de facto mayor — can sit there and lie to residents and threaten baseless lawsuits against the Town of Blooming Grove (for example) over a road that he was factually told the Village does not own, and has not owned since the Village was incorporated in 2006.
There are no consequences anywhere to be found here.
The Town of Monroe Ethics Board is packed with members of United Monroe, and a former Town Councilmember who is buddies with Cardone. So they’re not going to help you if you live in Monroe and have concerns about the behavior of the Town Supervisor.
The Town of Woodbury does not have, and seemingly refuses to have, an Ethics Board of its own, leaving you with the Orange County Ethics Board. And while they are good people on that Board — I know, I’ve met and worked with them on something recently — they are also incredibly limited on the scope of things they are able to assist people with.
(Most of the things I shared with them about Isaac Ekstein, the other de facto Mayor in South Blooming Grove, for example, they stressed should be shared with the Orange County District Attorney and not them.)
South Blooming Grove has no Ethics committee either. They also have an absentee municipal attorney with legal problems of his own. Say what you want about the guy Woodbury’s Town Board hired — after firing the previous Town Attorney for him allegedly not wanting to change the Ethics Code — but at least there’s an attorney present at those meetings.
After I notified Mayor Kalaj and Mr. Ugell that they may be participating in a crime, they have been absent from recent SBG meetings.
Does anyone think that’s a coincidence?
When I requested an interview with the NYS Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, about why Southern Orange County is the Wild West and what his office plans to do about it, he declined to speak with The Monroe Gazette. DiNapoli has also repeatedly declined to include South Blooming Grove in his weekly list of ongoing audits that he publishes in his newsletter.
So, to answer your question, there needs to be consequences.
Thankfully, New York State’s Public Officers law does provide a mechanism to remove an elected official from office, but it’s incredibly difficult to do successfully. I look forward to trying it out on Trustee James Freiband in the future.
What we need is actual legislative reform, both on the local level and the state-wide level. There needs to be a clear system to remove a bad actor if elected from office and shown to be actively causing harm.
In the example of Supervisor Cardone, knowing about a contaminated well and doing nothing about it. In the example of Supervisor Luciani, ignoring best practices and maybe even NYS Common Law in hiring her son to work at an animal shelter and paying him with your money.
In the example of Joel Stern, literally everything he’s said and done since taking over the Village in 2021.
At any other place of work, what I described to you just now would be grounds to fire an employee.
So I’ll just remind you that when someone is elected to public office, or is paid with your money as Mr. Stern is as a Village Employee, that they work for you. It’s not the other way around.
You’re the boss. Not them.
And when you’re elected to public office, your job is to represent EVERYONE — even if they did not vote for you — and to govern responsibly.
Question: Has Governor Hochul responded to any of your FOILs yet? What about some of these other foils you have out there?
Answer: I have a ton of FOIL requests out there right now. Orange County is very slowly responding to the ones related to the Sewer situation across Southern Orange County.
In fact, Orange County will not allow me to visit Orange County Sewer District 1 with a cameraman, and speak to the people who work at the facility about its current state of operations.
I did; however, receive one FOIL request, completed, of the four sent to Governor Kathy Hochul:
This is interesting because Governor Hochul’s office is saying there was NO communication between Jake Adler, Director of Jewish Affairs, and the Governor concerning S1811/A5761, which was the bill to allow a land preservation tax in Blooming Grove.
But …
If you recall this segment of a previous post concerning that specific bill:
Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, Agudah’s director of New York Government Relations, led and coordinated the advocacy effort …. ‘This veto sends a clear message that Chassidic Jews, like any other Americans, are entitled to live anywhere in New York State,’ Rabbi Silber also praised Jake Adler, Governor Hochul’s Director of Jewish Affairs, for his vital role in this effort. (Emphasis Added)
So, if Agudath Israel’s Rabbi Yeruchim Silber is praising Mr. Adler in his role concerning getting the bill vetoed, shouldn’t there be records of communications from Mr. Adler to Governor Kathy Hochul about it?
Is Mr. Adler a telepath? Did he communicate Rabbi Silber's desire to have the bill vetoed by Governor Hochul with his mind alone?
I know my fellow Jews and I are alleged to have some incredible powers, but that one would be news to me.
Then again, Governor Hochul legitimately had a Chinese spy working for her.
To say nothing of all the money the governor is currently spending to defend former Governor Cuomo, which is not something she is obligated to do, nor do people in New York State WANT her to do.
By the way, that's money Hochul is using to defend Cuomo that the State could allocate to literally hundreds of other urgent matters, including funding to keep Musem Village open in Monroe.
So … who knows how things operate up there in Albany?
I’m going to resubmit the FOIL and see who else Mr. Adler may have been in touch with, but if you think I’m buying the response from the Governor’s office that you see pictured above, you got another thing coming.
Question: Are Sabbath Sirens in South Blooming Grove the same thing as the Fire Whistles throughout Southern Orange County?
Answer: Some people around here are not capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, and those people are usually the loudest people on Facebook.
I usually see these people crawl out of the woodwork when discussing the Sabbath Sirens in South Blooming Grove.
The second you mention these sirens, you immediately see people going, “Yeah but the fire whistles!”
Shut up, Karen. (Or whatever the male equivalent of a Karen is. I don’t know. I’m not hip.)
My family has lived up here since 1988, and I am well aware of how loud and annoying the fire whistles are.
But here’s the difference between the Sabbath Sirens in South Blooming Grove and the Fire Whistles elsewhere in the area:
-The fire whistles have two jobs: 1. Alert volunteers and other emergency responders that an immediate danger needs to be addressed. 2. Alert residents in the area to a potential threat to their health and safety. This is a very loud, very annoying, public good that benefits everyone regardless of race, class, color, or any other distinction you’d like to make.
I’m old enough to remember too that, on 9/11, our cell phones DID NOT WORK. I have also worked long enough in the tech industry to know that smartphones can and often do fail for various reasons, so in a TRUE emergency, you’re going to want those fire whistles working.
-The Sabbath Sirens in South Blooming Grove — and I am ONLY speaking about those SPECIFIC sirens — were placed in residential areas on Village-owned property to benefit one group of people over another (a violation of both the NYS and Federal Establishment Clauses.)
In addition, Satmar and other Haredi communities have demonstrated that there are viable alternatives to the Sirens that still allow them to fulfill their duty of alerting people to the Sabbath without causing damage to the hearing of their non-Haredi neighbors. Here is one example from Monsey.
There are also various Rabbinically approved alternatives to alert Haredi residents to the coming of the Sabbath.
So, these two things are NOT the same.
It is not antisemitic to point out that the decibel level of the Sabbath Sirens in South Blooming Grove CAN cause permanent and irreparable damage to the hearing of the residents who live just under and around where the sirens are currently placed.
I encourage you to walk Dallas Drive sometime in South Blooming Grove to see how close the Sabbath Sirens are to people’s homes.
I also want to make one additional point about Rights.
When everyone’s health and safety is concerned, there is an argument to be made that the government has the right to put up an emergency alert system and operate it, no matter how annoying it may be.
It’s a public good that benefits everyone.
When no one’s health and safety is concerned, and someone wants to put up equally loud sirens for the direct benefit of only some members of the community — all while there are viable alternatives — your right to practice your religion does not override the right of everyone else in the community to their health and safety, which the decibel level of those sirens can damage, especially with those sirens placed so close to people’s homes.
For us to survive and thrive as a multicultural and mostly secular Democracy, we need to balance rights, not say one right immediately cancels out everyone else’s rights.
That and … Beware of our friends on Facebook who can’t walk and chew gum because they are legion.
And finally …
Question: Verizon is buying Frontier. Is that a good thing?
It’s not a good thing.
Optimum (aka Altice, formerly Cablevision) is a shitty company that’s long had a stranglehold on Southern Orange County and the larger New York City metro area.
Verizon is an equally shitty company with a long track record of bad customer service and anti-consumer practices.
Frontier provided people with an excellent, affordable, and reliable alternative to Optimum for Internet access.
Now, that will soon be gone, and you’re replacing a smaller company with another giant behemoth that could not care less about you or how you will make ends meet each month.
This loss of Frontier will ultimately lead to higher prices for Internet access in our region.
If Congressman Ryan wanted to demonstrate that he represents the interests of The People, not the billionaires and corporations, he would send a letter requesting that the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice stop this acquisition from closing.
He won’t.
Because Congressman Pat Ryan doesn’t represent you or I.
Like James G. Skoufis, Congressman Pat Ryan is a climber. He’s just stepping on you to get to where he wants to go.
Above: I would have voted for Congressman Ryan had the postcard said, “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings - Ursula K. Le Guin.”
A post card received in The Monroe Gazette’s PO BOX from a volunteer for Congressman Ryan.
It does not mention high grocery store prices, the outrageous cost of prescription medication for our seniors, or the corporate greed making rent and homes unaffordable for us all.
But he’s going to keep our families safe … From what exactly? People at the Border who are escaping Climate Change, governments we helped to destabilize, and untold violence for a better life?
Seriously?
Are you seriously fearmongering over the Border with this dog whistle racism instead of talking about high grocery store prices?
Fuck outta here …
If Congressman Ryan knows the core role of government is to keep our communities safe, then why hasn’t he been to South Blooming Grove? The Congressman has yet to speak to residents about the ongoing water emergency, the lack of clean air, the rampant fraud of the Village government that’s worthy of an FBI investigation. Nothing.
But he does have time for a photo-op outside a grocery store that recently committed a hate crime.
The Congressman has zero interest in representing you because he thinks he will be president someday.
Peter Thiel, the evil billionaire who created JD Vance, thinks so too, which is why his company is one of Congressman Ryan’s largest donors.
But Congressman Ryan’s largest donor is AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which has worked to defend the actions of the Netanyahu government in Gaza, silence any dissent about Israel’s activities, and is pushing our politicians increasingly to the right.
Where Congressman Ryan is concerned, and as residents of South Blooming Grove can attest, money talks.
So, don’t expect this guy to put a stop to Verizon’s purchase of Frontier, even though it should be an immediate priority and something he totally has the power to do, right now.
Much like Clovewood, he could do something, but he’s decided not to.
When people tell you who they are, believe them.
So, what’s the solution to make local Internet access more affordable?
Municipal Broadband. Not a corporate duopoly.
In short, Municipal Broadband provides affordable Internet access and eliminates corporations and their large executive salaries (in 2023, the Verizon CEO made just over $24M in executive compensation for that year alone).
This is easier said than done to install and would require a lot of funding from Congress and New York State. But as we’ve seen in locations like Chattanooga, Tennesee, Municipal Broadband also acts as a critical economic driver. Something our region would benefit from, given our proximity to New York City and the continued rise of the Hybrid Workplace.
So, I guess this is a good news / bad news situation. The bad news is, be prepared to pay more for Internet access when this deal closes. The good news is we do have a solution that allows us to break free of these two large, wealthy corporations.
We just need to ask for it.
The same way we need to ask for accountability in our elected officials. Because Climate Change is coming baby, and we’re fucked if we don’t change how our local governments operate.