You see, the CDC is asleep at the wheel, and so is the New York State Department of Health.

But since New York State Democrats in the Assembly, Senate, and the executive Branch are not treating our national emergency like a national emergency yet, here we are.

If you are set to lose either health insurance or food assistance here in New York State, you just got fucked.

And I know some of you don’t like the swearing. But let me ask you something: If thousands of people are denied assistance by their own politicians, because national politicians took that lifesaving aid away from them, what kind of language are we supposed to use?

If you doubt state Democrats don’t take our national emergency seriously, I’ll remind you that they did nothing on the New York Health Act, the New York Privacy Act, the New York For All Act, and numerous other bills, because Kathy Hochul intentionally delayed the budgeting process. She did this so she wouldn’t have to deal with any of that in an election year.

How thoughtful of her.

The New York State Republicans are essentially dead on arrival (DOA) at this point. That’s why I rarely mention them. For example, Monroe's assemblyman, Karl Brabenec, spent the last three months writing C minus grade ChatGPT letters to the editor in The Photo News, did nothing, and then bragged about how he lowered your car insurance.

Except, he didn't tell you that by lowering your car insurance by 10 percent, he helped make it impossible for you to get a payout if you're injured in a car accident.

"Promises Made, Promises Kept," right Karl? You dipshit.

I tell you I have COVID because we can’t get reliable weather forecasts anymore, and our country has turned into a joke when it comes to managing the spread of diseases and parasites like the three creatures pictured in the thumbnail below:

Are you tired of winning yet?

Have you figured out that the problem we have locally, at the state level, and on the national level is all exactly the same?

Or am I just pissing in the wind here?

The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content and the ability to comment on posts just like this one.

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This is a short post about this week’s Monroe Town Board meeting.

Below is an excerpt that I want you to pay attention too. And no, I won’t subject you to the video where Dorey “I spent almost a half-million dollars on racist TV ads” Houle Ghoul showed up to lecture the Town Board about budgeting.

Dorey Houle, you’re the reason the Town’s finances are so messed up in the first place.

Thank God this racist didn’t run for office again this fall.

The next time you see her at a meeting, ask Dorey Houle about how she nearly cost the town $30,000 in a lawsuit last fall.

All because she refused to disclose her notes from a town board meeting that she admitted on camera that she had and can be seen taking.

But Rick Colon, running unopposed, is also a problem.

I’m not thrilled about that either.

The fact that he’s unopposed, despite representing the old Harley Doles crew, is concerning.

The point here is to move on from United Monroe and Harley Doles. When Councilwoman Bingham retires, she will be the last remaining representative of United Monroe that holds public office.

When Sal Scancarello, who can’t seem to bother showing up for a meeting anymore, is chased out of office — and he will be — that will be the end of the Tony Cadone-Dorey-Houle school of “How to destroy a town’s finances.”

The point here is to move on from the Tony Cardone Crew too.

A fresh start. That is what we were all promised this fall by Beth Stephens, Luis Rivera, and Maureen Richardson.

Democrats that actually do their job, don’t complain, and get things done. Because as Zohran Mamdani has demonstrated in New York City, every pothole you fill is a victory. It demonstrates that people’s tax dollars are going where they should, and that the bureaucracy is working the way it’s supposed to.

You don’t have to like the guy. I have problems with Mamdai trying to mess with the pension for city retirees. But the point here is, his government works as advertised.

As opposed to what we see at the state and federal level right now.

But despite what was promised in the 2025 election for Monroe, the town still does not have a functional town government.

We will get to all of that stuff soon. I have Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests in for all of Supervisor Richardson’s email, and a FOIL lawsuit ready to go the second there’s any sort of obstruction because of the town’s new law firm’s apparent inability to do its job. While Brian Nugent was a problem, I’m going to tell you right now that this new law firm is just as bad and needs to go immediately.

I also have FOILs in to Woodbury for all the emails received by them from Supervisor Richardson. So, please hold your questions on the Dial-a-Ride and Animal Shelter situation for next week.

For now, just watch this dangerous idiot, Tom Lapolla, waste the public’s time, starting at 2:49 in the video below.

Now listen, there are questions that need to be answered about the “Jewish Liaison.” For starters, please stop calling Solomon Landau the “Jewish Liaison.” As a Jew, he does not represent me. In his own words, he does not represent the entire Jewish community. As a Satmar, he does not represent the entire Haredi community either.

Nor does he represent the Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform Jewish community.

It’s honestly insulting that the town decided to call Mr. Landau the “Jewish Liaison” and not the more accurate “Satmar Liaison.”

We need to be clear and specific.

Especially because the Satmar community, factually, exaggerates its size by saying they represent the entire Orthodox community. They most certainly do not.

See: Nearly every single lawsuit filed by Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP on behalf of South Blooming Grove, Joel Stern and his criminal friends, and Kiryas Joel.

So, “Satmar Liaison.” Not Jewish Liaison.

And the fact that neither Mr. Rivera nor Mrs. Richardson have addressed the problematic relationship of having only a Satmar Liaison and not such a representative for the Town’s Latino population, which makes up nearly half of Monroe and is currently being victimized by the federal government, is deeply disturbing.

It demonstrates to the town that the promise of moving beyond Dorey Houle’s corrupt ineptitude is a false one.

Why do the Satmar need direct access to not only the town supervisor but also Assemblymen Eachus and Brabenec, and our adulterous populist state senator?

They don’t. As we’ve seen in South Blooming Grove, the entire apparatus of New York State’s government, from the Governor all the way down to the local Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) branch, seems incapable of getting in the way of Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein.

But.

That doesn’t excuse or justify the presence of former New York State Assembly candidate, and vocal anti-vaxxer, Tom Lapolla.

That man, as long as he continues to share anti-vaxxer views, is a clear and present danger to our entire community.

Given his stance on vaccines, if seated next to you, Mr. Lapolla could also be a danger to your health. He would be a danger to my health and to anyone else who is elderly or otherwise disabled with a health condition.

Over 319,000 people died during the pandemic, after vaccines were available and proven to be safe and effective, because of anti-vaxxing bullshit spread by people like Tom Lapolla.

That’s about 19 sold-out crowds at Madison Square Garden to see the Knicks.

That’s how many people are dead because of dangerous shit like what’s coming out of Tom Lapolla’s mouth.

If you are an anti-vaxxer, I have no problem calling you the scum of the earth.

Your lies killed people. Hundreds and thousands of them.

Any of these anti-vaxxer assholes who want to get anywhere near a microphone should be booed out of every municipal building across America.

Not until they apologize and say, “I was wrong. Vaccines are safe and effective, and if you haven’t got your COVID-19 booster, you should get one.”

Because baby, let me tell you something, right now? I got COVID-19.

And we could have eradicated this virus while we had the chance. But because of people like Tom Lapolla we blew that chance.

Now COVID-19 will be with us forever.

So fuck that guy.

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If you live in Orange County and you're a registered Democrat, we encourage you to support Raj Goyle instead of the incumbent, Thomas DiNapoli, because of what appears to be an attempt by DiNapoli to bury the audit of South Blooming Grove. Something his office began in March of 2024 and is still going.

Why?

According to Thomas DiNapoli’s office, “During the audit, we identified matters requiring additional review which has impacted the timing of the audit.”

Our guess is this audit will be done around the same time the remaining two to three million Epstein fiels are going to be released.

Vote for Raj instead. It may be our only shot at full financial transparency from this Village.

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The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content and the ability to comment on posts just like this one.

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Note: The following transcript was lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

BJ Mendelson, Editor, The Monroe Gazette: Raj, thank you so much for joining us here on The Monroe Gazette. Would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself?

Raj Goyle, Candidate for New York State Comptroller: Thank you for having me, BJ.

My name is Raj Goyle and I am a Democratic candidate for New York State Comptroller.

BJ Mendelson: Tell us a little about yourself, and a little about yourself before you decided to run.

Raj Goyle: I’m running to be the affordability watchdog. I think that we need better Democrats, people who fight and not fold, and that we can lower utility rates and that we can get ICE out of New York and build affordable housing. We can invest and attack the affordability crisis and fight the Trump authoritarian administration. I myself am a dad, I’m a husband, I’m a son, got two teenage daughters.

I’ve run a successful New York business. I helped pass the cell phone ban in public schools here in New York. I’ve been a former legislator and perhaps most importantly I’ve been a civil rights lawyer my entire life and so I worked at the ACLU, the NAACP legal defense fund, Public Citizen, and very much believe in holding power accountable.

BJ: Here in Orange County, we’re particularly excited for someone to challenge Thomas DiNapoli for some of the reasons that we’re gonna get into. But before we get into that, I first wanna ask you some bigger national …

Raj: BJ, I I’m sorry, I need to interrupt you because you realize that I’m an adopted son of Orange County. My wife, Monica Aurora, is a a lifelong New Yorker and a native Orange Countian. And so she, my in-laws immigrated from New Delhi with, you know, five bucks to Rochester in nineteen seventy. And then after six months took a bus to Warwick. And some locals took them in and got them jobs in the school system. And they spent 30 years as lifelong union members and public school teachers. And my in-laws built a gorgeous Indian temple off exit 118 off the Thruway called Bartheam under.

BJ: I sometimes feel like we have politicians that will run for a local office that have no connection at all to Orange County. We just had a gentleman, I won’t say who it was, run for Monroe Town Supervisor, who had never gone to a meeting and his only claim to fame was being the chief of staff of a New York State Assemblyman. So there was really no connection that they had with Monroe civically. So I I always love hearing things like that.

Before we get into the Orange County stuff, there’s a bigger question I wanted to ask you about because I I really enjoyed the op-ed you wrote in City and State recently. So I have two questions related to that on some of these large national issues that New York State and the New York State Comptroller’s Office play a role in.

And so the first is… This is something that we had first pointed out to DiNapoli’s office. Where the New York State Common Retirement Fund held just about 3.5 million shares of Tesla, which is worth about $1.42 billion. And this was around the time where Musk was still in the White House and was beginning his cuts, or not long after where Musk was beginning his cuts, to USAID.

It’s projected that the number of people that have died because of these cuts is about seven hundred and sixty-two thousand people, over five hundred thousand of which are children.

So we asked DiNapoli’s office basically, you know, would you consider divesting from Tesla? And we kind of got this non answer:

“We recognize the concerns regarding Tesla’s governance challenges, recent financial performance, and reputational risks, but we must continue to focus on long-term value and sustainability. Consistent with this approach, we prioritize engagement with corporate management, and only contemplate divestment as an absolute last resort and only then when the Fund would not be negatively impacted by such action.”

But I just wanted to ask, if if you were in Mr. DiNapoli’s seat, given what we know now about the Musk cuts to USAID and as well as the, you know, people can’t get accurate weather forecasts because of DOGE…

So given all the damage that we can factually say has been caused by Musk, would you, as the comptroller divest from Tesla and other companies owned or operated by him?

Raj Goyle: I know I would have a fundamentally different approach to Elon Musk than Tom DiNapoli Even in my launch video, I filmed a scene outside Tesla’s showroom in Manhattan because Tom DiNapoli voted for Elon Musk in a Tesla board election, did not seriously audit Tesla after the boondoggle in Buffalo. And he’s been, as you mentioned, when Elon Musk was taking a literal chainsaw to the federal government when he, you know, on on one of his ketamine fueled binges, causing massive death and destruction and of course not saving the government a dollar.

In fact, he will end up costing us vast sums of money. Tom DiNapoli said nothing. And so I will absolutely take just a fundamentally different approach to Musk rather than coddling him.

We will fight to make sure that we have not only our values protected in the pension fund, but moreover, we must have clear corporate governance. Elon Musk is taking a meat cleaver to very long establish corporate governance protections for not just investors, but for the people at large and the SpaceX IPO. That’s coming up is is a great example of that. They’re gonna SpaceX investors gonna be able to dump their shares right away, possibly. There is this … he’s got the Nasdaq to list the company much sooner than the normal lockup period to see which is an important investor protection. And so I would absolutely take a very, very different approach to Musk and of course I’m very open to divesting from Musk owned companies.

BJ: And just for people listening, the it was the Cato Institute that had pointed out that the DOGE cuts would actually cost more money than what was actually saved. (Something laid out in detail from other reports like this one.) So we’re generally left leaning on this show. I think people know that when they listen to read our work, but I just wanna point out that it was even the conservative think tank that had pointed out that Musk would cause more financial damage…

Raj: Well yeah, I mean I think any of us who are who are involved in government and public life, I think could have seen that one a mile a mile away. And I certainly was doing media appearances at the time and and and called that out very, very clearly.

And in fact I predicted that the Musk-Trump relationship would fracture as it did. And so, you know, these are volatile people who have very who have no scruples and don’t mask their agenda. They are about self interest and and corporate greed and they do not care one bit about how we succeed as a community, as a people, as an economy.

BJ: And this is on a similar topic where Orange County was sort of ground zero for this warehouse expansion that was proposed of taking warehouses across the country and converting them into concentration camps. That’s my term for them. I know most people are okay with that analogy, but some aren’t, and I understand why. But there was this big question of whether or not 29 Elizabeth Drive [in the Village of Chester] was gonna be converted. They eventually backed off, they being ICE and DHS.

However, they did open a office in New Windsor that not even the town supervisor was aware of. And there’s also currently a discussion as to what they want to build, if anything, over by Stewart Airport over on the town of Newburgh side. So ICE is very much top of mind, so is DHS. You know, as I write this, ICE is continuing to kidnap Monroe residents.

And so there are a number of companies that are currently doing business with DHS and ICE. Dell, UPS, FedEx, Motorola, Comcast, ATT, Lexus Nexus, Home Depot and Lowe’s, Amazon and Palantir, Palantir being the big one. we’ll circle back to Palantir when we get to the next question. But some of these other companies, it’s sort of the same topic of… if you found that they were doing business that deprived American citizens of their rights. What action could you take as the comptroller to help send the message saying that this is not okay?

Raj Goyle: Obviously there’s two levers here. There’s divestment and then there’s shareholder activism and and pressure on the company. And I believe Tom has failed at both.

Nobody I think fears Tom DiNapoli in terms of corporate responsibility and his strongly worded letters. I don’t know if you listen to the debate we had last week, but you know, a a strongly worded letter from Tom DiNapoli I think, is is sort of maybe worth the Kleenex it’s printed on.

And so I would be an absolute 180 degree different comptroller in terms of going to these companies and ensuring that we rise up and and take concrete action on curbing that behavior that offends our values.

And then of course, if they don’t alter their behavior, we will divest. And you know, the other thing to mention, BJ, is that the enormous leverage that the blue state pension funds would have if we acted in concert. And so just California, Illinois, and New York alone with shared values could have enormous pressure on the way these companies behave.

Look at how Texas and the red states scared corporate America just through some cultural shaming and through the culture wars on Fox News and the Murdoch media. Well, imagine if we actually took principled stands and not just scare tactics but actually spoke factually and and authentically about the behavior of these companies, there would be a sea change.

I know you mentioned that we talked about it later but Palantir, our campaign broke the about DiNapoli investment in Palantir. He continues frankly to lie about it. It is an active position. We have the documents that show that it was that he is he’s launched shareholder proposals of course that have that have been relatively meaningless but he’s launched shareholder proposals at Palantir. The New York State Commons started at around $180 million worth and then got up to $480 million worth. Obviously the index fund didn’t triple its weighting for Palantir, the Tom DiNapoli stock pickers such that he knows what they’re doing, did that as an act of position. So that is outrageous, it’s immoral. Palantir is the technology backbone of ICE, ICE’s war of terror, and moreover, we know that its valuation and its economics are driven by Trump largesse.

BJ: Palantir is top of mind in the Congressional District Eighteen, because Pat Ryan has received Palantir funding in the past.

So. Palantir is something that in this district we’re very concerned with, given the nature of Congressman Ryan’s relationship with the company and other companies like it.

And that brings us to this one other large national thing I want to talk to about, which is the genocide in Gaza and the what looks like, and this is just my opinion, what looks like another attempt at genocide over in Lebanon with the Israeli government.

So I really enjoyed the op-ed that you published in City and State. So I was kind of hoping you could first share with us your position on on the situation, but then second …

What are the levers of a New York State Comptroller could exercise in a situation where they see bad action or something that really is unacceptable or in violation of the human rights charter of the United Nations?

And a lot of New York State residents are upset about what’s happening in Israel. What can we do if anything about the genocide?

Raj: So Tom DiNapoli often claims that he runs the fund free of politics, but what could be a more political decision than in a foreign bond portfolio being overwhelmingly weighted toward one country out of the two hundred and twenty or so countries in the world and that being Israel. their bonds have been downgraded. It makes no financial sense to be so heavily weighted. And then of course I have been the only candidate in this race from day one to talk about the war crimes, about Netanyahu as a war criminal, and of course the genocide and the dignity of the Palestinian people. And so, the state comptroller … and when I’m comptroller on minute one, we will sell those bonds. And that’s no ifs, ands or buts.

And we will cancel the entire foreign bond portfolio in the comptroller’s office and bring that money home to New York. And we will invest in the things that make New York great, which are affordable housing and clean energy and lowering utility rates and doing everything we can to tackle the affordability agenda and let New Yorkers live the best life they can.

BJ: I wanna drill down just a little bit. About how you mentioned that you do things differently. And so I’m gonna kinda walk you through our situation here in Orange County with the village of South Blooming Grove.

So I’m just gonna give you like a little bit of a data dump before I get to my question, which is back in March of 2024, DiNapoli’s office began an audit of South Blooming Grove.

The day before the audit, there was security camera footage of one of the people who is identified often as the co-mayor, Joel Stern, removing items from Village Hall and bringing them up to the United Jewish community of Blooming Grove headquarters.

Above: A copy of an email, forwarded by The Monroe Gazette to a federal agency, concerning Thomas DiNapoli’s office ignoring reports from residents about the movement of documents following news coverage of the Comptroller investigation in March of 2024. The Village of South Blooming Grove delayed, repeatedly, FOIL requests for this and other security camera footage, routinely replying that no footage exists whenever requested.

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It’s unclear if DiNapoli’s office ever followed up on, you know, the multiple citations that they that they received from village residents who had seen the box truck that had moved those documents. What is clear though is that the South Blooming Grove audit, as far as Thomas DiNapoli goes, doesn’t seem to exist. It’s never been mentioned over the two years since March of 2024 in his email newsletter. Whenever we ask DiNapoli’s office about it, they’ll they’ll tell us every every audit is on the website, right? But they’ve never actually identified South Blooming Grove in their weekly email newsletter for over two years now.

Once June 2025 had rolled around, DiNapoli’s office went completely silent. it was as if this audit was was just not happening. And then there was a fraudulent election that was held, which drew the attention of the New York State Senate, the Senate Investigation Operations Committee, which then referred a lot of documentation evidence over to Attorney General Letitia James’s office.

James’s office claims the investigation is open, but you know, we can talk about that some other time. But my point here is … There were definitely irregularities flagged to DiNapoli office as far back as January of 2021 about South Blooming Grove. There was a three-year gap before he [DiNapoli] even did anything.

And then in March of 2024, when his office did do something, it became very evident to both residents and the media that DiNapoli’s office had no interest in discussing or even pretending that this audit existed.

So when you say that you’re going to do things differently, I’m kind of wondering if you could walk us through how you would do things differently in that situation.

Raj: So it’s clear that the office has mishandled this audit, failed to use the audit authorities to help New Yorkers, and I will be transparent about my entire audit process. I will hold corporations and individuals accountable. And if I uncover any illegal activity or inappropriate behavior, I’ll use every every lever available to hold people accountable. And it really should not be that complicated. And I have heard this from many people around audits that sort of go into outer space and just sort of stay there.

And I think even more importantly, BJ, we have an office where these audits don’t make a difference in people’s lives. This incredible power to audit every state dollar and to hold power accountable. Instead, Tom DiNapoli preserves the insider’s power. He is the living embodiment of wasted political power. And so you know, it’s like a hundred and eighty degree difference. When Raj Goyle is comptroler, there will be full accountability for any issue that I tackle and take on and transparency will be the hallmark.

BJ: Tell me a little bit about how you would coordinate with law enforcement. So I happen to know that there’s at least one federal agency looking into South Blooming Grove.

And as I mentioned, Attorney General Letitia James’ office claims. I I don’t, honestly, it’s just my opinion. I don’t believe her. And we could talk about that some other time, but her office also claims that the investigation to South Blooming Grove remains open.

But I’m curious about … The word irregularities has come up. You know, in DiNapoli’s office when talking about South Blooming Grove has said, they found irregularities. And so what I’m wondering is if you were to find irregularities, what how would you coordinate with law enforcement in sharing and prosecuting if needed?

Raj: Well, of course, if something rises to the level of necessitating a law enforcement inquiry and or action, we will we will trigger it. Of course it depends on the facts and circumstances of the particular audit and the particular issue that we’re dealing with, but we should not have neither fear nor favor for anyone. And so if if these are political allies or political enemies.

We should the only gold standard is is what’s best for the people and what’s best for New York. And so I will work with frankly any and all and take on any and all fights if I view that the that the right thing to do is to is to take action.

BJ: So my dad is a New York City retiree. He was a New York City retiree. he was a public school teacher and later administrator for 40 years in the Bronx. and so there’s a lot of concern now about the pension funds and whether or not, you know, those pensions are gonna be affected in one way, shape, or form or if that money, you know, will be there.

And so I was just curious if you can talk a little bit about the current situation that might be facing retirees about available funding and what if anything might be able to do to do to alleviate that?

Raj: Well, I believe that the pension fund or New York State Common has been underinvested in because of course he pays so much in Wall Street fees. I’ve been sort of focused on fees for many, many years. I even looked at running at this office in 2018 because I’ve been so long interested in its power and the issues that it can help New Yorkers on.

And so the fact of the matter is that if we had a bigger principle, you know, the New York State pension fund should just be larger. If it was larger, you could of course even contemplate there’s two things that would happen. You’d have less of a need for employer and employee contributions. So that means less taxes and less diversion of people’s wages. And secondly, you could even increase the return that you give to each retiree. So the payouts would be higher.

That is the math and the calculus of simply dividing up a huge pie. And so I know that we could invest this fund more prudently, more economically, and return more money to the pensioners.

Unfortunately Tom has no financial background before he was appointed to the office. And I think we’ve seen a result of that.

BJ: Is there anything that I could have asked you or should have asked you that I didn’t?

Raj: Ask me about your utility bill.

The state comptroller, as I said, should be the affordability watchdog. Tom DiNapoli should be auditing the public service commission aggressively, extensively, thoroughly, and finding out what’s happening with these rate hikes, these proposed rate hikes and why they get approved. And if you look at this last budget, there’s a raft of bills that deal with utility hikes. But.

The tragedy is that the one office that is the that should be the responsible party for looking out for the ratepayers of New York is asleep at the switch, and that’s Tom Dinapoli. And so when I am Comptroller, we will have a very aggressive stand in terms of not only is the pension fund invested in publicly traded utilities and can use the shareholder prong, but can also of course use that audit authority to very extensively find out and open up these books and then of course ensure if if they say that they need a billion dollars and it turns out they needed half a billion, we’re gonna claw that money back.

And we are going to be very aggressive about AI data centers as well.

BJ: Where how can people get involved? How can they support your campaign?

Raj: I appreciate it. Go to RajGoyle.com, Instagram at RajGoyleNY and of course just shoot a note over to us anytime. Email is on the website, and our volunteer page is on the website, and really appreciate all your work, BJ and and if love to keep talking.

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Once I am done copy-editing it, we’ll pick the pace back up here at the Gazette with more video and podcasts to accompany the newsletter. Thank you for your patience. It was supposed to only be a 20,000 word book and it ended up over 45,000.

The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content and the ability to comment on posts just like this one.

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The fun starts at 22:27 in the video above.

All I can really tell you right now, for reasons explained below, is that everyone on the Town of Woodbury side — even the man who regularly catches his dick in his zipper — is telling the truth.

And Town of Monroe Supervisor Maureen Richardson is not.

She is essentially trying to strong-arm the Town of Woodbury into signing a shittier version of a deal concerning the Animal Shelter intermunicipal agreement (IMA.)

Now. To be clear: There was ALWAYS a problem with this specific arrangement between the Town of Monroe and Town of Woodbury.

That’s because, if you remember, Tony Cardone made Monroe residents overpay the Town of Woodbury to provide the animal shelter’s services to both towns. He did this to help bolster former Town Supervisor Lying Luciani’s political chances for re-election. He failed. Just like he failed to bolster his own.

But.

The time and place to have that discussion about the overbilling should have been during the discussions between the two NEW supervisors and between their respective boards.

Both were elected to clean up the steaming turds left on everyone’s lawn from two years of Kathryn Luciani in Woodbury and almost a decade of Tony Cardone as a decrepit and fatter version of Vladimir Putin in Monroe.

The time and place to have that discussion was not in public at a Woodbury Town Board meeting.

If that kind of stunt sounds familiar, it’s right out of the Tony Cardone playbook.

In fact, Supervisor Richardson just experienced it at her previous Town Board meeting. So, knowing how shitty it is to be on the receiving end of a ratfucking during public comment, one would think Supervisor Richardson would demonstrate that she was a better person than Tony Cardone.

That did not happen last night.

Instead, the new Supervisor looked like the old Supervisor, even making a snide remark about Chief Watson and whether or not he understood Robert’s Rules of Order.

Now listen, we have ABSOLUTELY criticized Chief Watson, and will probably do so again when we get to those FLOCK Security Cameras on Route 32 around Woodbury Common’s entrances. (It’s a big problem. You don’t know who’s accessing that footage beyond the Woodbury Police department. This puts anyone driving on Route 32 in danger, especially from agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security.)

But. We’re also not a Town Board member. Nor are we the Town Supervisor. I can say whatever I want as a member of the press. I work for the people. I don’t work for any of these fools. But if I were an elected official, I’d act like one. And taking a dig at the police chief in this specific context wasn’t the right thing to do.

Say the guy is corrupt at a campaign stop. Don’t say he’s stupid at a Town Board meeting where he’s just doing his job. You don’t see me following around and heckling Brandon Calore in South Blooming Grove when he (allegedly) was/is doing work for Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein’s buddy, CIOFFI, do you?

And don’t fight with the anti-corruption Town Supervisor in Woodbury, Jaqueline Hernandez, in public, because you can’t control yourself over email.

We’ve put in a FOIL request for the emails between the two supervisors. Since the Town of Monroe’s FOIL system is apparently dead and about to get them sued, we put in a duplicate request with the Town of Woodbury.

We can state that multiple sources have seen these emails and have unanimously told The Monroe Gazette that Supervisor Richardson’s behavior in them was rude and disrespectful.

This behavior was cited by Supervisor Hernandez, in the above video, as being the reason she hasn’t been receptive to responding to Supervisor Richardson. We will share these emails when we receive them.

So, what gives? Are You Guys “Going Negative”?

Going negative implies that we work for someone. We don’t. When you’re a journalist you work on behalf of the people. You follow the facts, and that’s what you report. Sometimes those facts will make people you like look good, and sometimes it won’t.

If you only presented facts that made one side look bad, and not the other, then you wouldn’t be much of a journalist. So miss me with any of that weak shit.

I am, honestly, just as dumbfounded as the rest of you about what’s going on in the Town of Monroe. I have no answers. All I can say to you is that this isn’t what I voted for, and this is not the candidate I supported in my personal capacity.

But then, I was also the guy Supervisor Richardson wanted to run with for Town Board, before she decided not too, and then wanted me to help the Town straighten out some of its administrative and communications mess, before she decided not too. So hey, the joke is on me too here. I had a plan to shut down the Gazette and move on with my life in January. Part of the reason we’re still around is because Supervisor Richardson can’t keep her word.

Which … probably should have been a red flag. But that’s on me. I’m the trusting sort.

But it’s not just me who’s puzzled among supporters of Supervisor RIchardson.

Just ask your friends at Hands Off Hudson Valley. Supervisor Richardson told everyone there she was a supporter of the New York For All legislation, and appeared at Hands Off Hudson Valley rallies.

Then after getting into office said she now no longer supports the bill. Supervisor Richardson then began to berate and condescend toward members of Hands Off Hudson Valley who wanted an explanation on this flip flop. Richardson’s claims that she had read the bill were concerning as well. Had she not read it earlier? And if that’s the case, why the fuck were you outside protesting in support of it?

Supervisor Richardson also told campaign supporters she would put an end to the corruption of the Tony Cardone regime. Only to turn around and create a “Jewish Liaison” position and give it to someone, by their own admission, who does not represent the entire Jewish community of the Town. Thus making this role an offensive farce and demonstration of the kind of corruption you see on the State and National level when it comes to the Democrats.

(If you doubt this, just call Attorney General Letitia James’s office and ask her how that investigation into South Blooming Grove is going. Quit laughing Republicans. Because both the DOJ and Trump White House refuse, and Speaker Mike Johnson’s office, refuse to comment on Letitia James’s inability to prosecute two Haredi men over a conspiracy to commit voter fraud over multiple years in a blue state. So don’t be a MAGA dipshit. Both parties suck, and Trump ain’t fixing it. If you haven’t figured that out yet, just wait until we run into gas shortages this year.)

To add insult to injury, Supervisor Richardson went ahead and appointed the farcical Jewish Liaison—who does not represent 99% of the Jewish Community— to be the liaison for the Senate and Assembly. If you were looking to send a message about being anti-corruption, immediately creating a Jewish Liaison Position and then making that person the point person to Albany is really not helping right now.

Seriously. It’s hard enough as a Jew right now between Jeffrey Epstein, Stephen Miller, Chuck Schumer, and Benjamin Netanyahu. And then locally, you got Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein. Not to mention State Senator Skoufis making no attempt at all to hide that he only seems interested in the needs of Haredi real estate developers. (Remember his attempt to merge the Town and Village of Woodbury?)

I am deeply concerned we’re going to see a tide of anti-semitism like we haven’t seen since the 1930s for every day these men—and people like Skoufis— wield any sort of power over this country and the world.

So to go ahead and create a position for a small minority of your community, and then make that person your connection to Albany is just lighting a match. Especially when you just sold out your Latino community, who makes up 40% of your population. Where is there liaison during a time when they’re getting snatched off the street by ICE?

We’ll give Town Board member, Mary Bingham, the last word on this until we see those emails:

“While it is within the Supervisor's ability to appoint a liaison, I still am unclear why the Town needs to have Mr. Landau be a liaison to our State and Assembly representatives.

We have several different minority groups within Monroe, and to the best of my knowledge no liaisons have yet been assigned for the Spanish/Latin Americans, Muslim, Ukrainian/Polish, or any other minority groups living in Monroe.”

Bingham added, “I do believe all our state representative have always had an "open door" policy allowing every person to contact their offices and express their concerns.”

We’ll make one addendum to Councilwoman Bingham’s statement, Javier Dam. Javier Dam has a helicopter operating on an unknown to the FAA helipad, that did not receive approval from the Village of South Blooming Grove planning board to be built, and can you guess what State Senator Skoufis has done for Mr. Dam? He won’t even return Mr. Dam’s calls.

That’s a Monroe resident in need of a state representative with an open door policy. So far, he has yet to find one. But the Jewish Liaison does.

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Just watch last night’s meeting. It’s like they had to conduct business immediately following the Pope walking into the room and taking a dump on the floor in front of them:

Maybe this has something to do with Alex Melchiorrie, current mayor until a scandal comes along—which could be any day now given who he’s meeting with in his spare time. This is because Melchiorrie is alleged to be getting shit-canned over in Blooming Grove.

As of this writing, Blooming Grove Supervisor Robert Jeroloman has not replied to requests for comment from News 12 and The Monroe Gazette concerning Mayor Alex Melchiorrie’s job status as Blooming Grove’s Police Chief. In response, The Monroe Gazette has placed a FOIL request in with the town for all documentation concerning Melchiorrie’s termination. But you should know, the Town of Blooming Grove has actively obstructed a couple of our FOIL requests on the grounds that, and this is true, “because we can.”

Essentially what they’re doing is, instead of using Adobe Acrobat or another program to redact files on the computer like a normal person would, they’re intentionally printing out the files, redacting them by hand, and then charging fees related to this redaction work. Many agencies do this to create a financial burden to prohibit the public from accessing documents. However, a new advisory opinion by the New York State Committee on Open Government (COOG) may put a stop to that behavior in Blooming Grove.

One would think our state senator, the adulterous “populist” James G. Skoufis, would speak up on issues like this with only a few days left to go in this year’s legislative session. But he’s too busy pushing a bill that would limit the resale of tickets on the secondary market, which is a good thing on paper, but like any Skoufis bill, and like the man himself, lacks any balls. (And yes, he’s talking about concert tickets instead of hundreds and thousands of New Yorkers about to lose their health insurance, while others face sky rocketing premiums and hospitals are set to close. What a populist!)

This Skoufis bill does not actually explain how such a ban or restrictions would be implemented on secondary market ticket sales where the ticket price has been marked up. In other words, it’s toothless. Skoufis just wants to tell you he’s doing something without actually doing anything, which is typical of New York State Democrats. And since Skoufis is part of the larger Democratic National Committee apparatus, typical of the national Democratic party as well.

If you don’t believe me, just look at how everyone got a 10% reduction or so in their car insurance premiums in exchange for potentially not getting ANY money should they get into an accident. That was Kathy Hochul’s big thing this year, and that big thing, yet again, was a gift to corporations.

Like Skoufis, the fact that this was a big priority for Hochul should demonstrate that the New York State Democratic Party only works for the wealthy. You and I don’t count. The only time they think about us here in Orange County is when a Haredi real estate developer complains about those pesky people wanting New York State agencies to actually do their job. To which the Dems just shrug their shoulders and say “Don’t worry about it. Those people [meaning us] are either going to move or die from old age. What do you care?”

Just ask Letitia James, our attorney general. How’s that investigation into actual election fraud going in South Blooming Grove, Letitia? I am willing to bet that, in the last few months, I have gathered more documents and sent them to more law enforcement agencies than James has done since she first mumbled about an investigation in December.

That’s the New York State Democrats position on things like South Blooming Grove: Who cares if you have two fire departments fighting with each other? Who cares if you haven’t had an election since 2023?

Those people complaining are either going to move, or they’re going to die. So don’t worry about it.

Move or Die.

I know we’re a broken record, but we’ll repeat it until things have changed: The Republican Party has been hijacked by fascists and weirdos. They cannot be supported under any circumstances until those fascists and weirdos are chased back under the rocks they crawled out from under. You find me a Republican who isn’t foaming at the mouth about trans people or “illegals” and I will tell you I’ve found a Republican I can vote for.

We don’t have that right now. We might not for a long while still.

But the Democratic Party has also been hijacked. Funny enough, by the same people who fund those fascists and weirdos. That’s how this game works. The wealthy keep us fighting with each other by funding both sides. So we’re all looking left and right instead of up.

You can find proof of this in Hochul bragging to a number of Haredi machers in Rockland about the buffer zone to prevent people from protesting within 50 feet of a house of worship—something that was done to keep those pesky Gaza protestors away from rightfully demonstrating over visits to New York by genocidal war criminals like Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Minister of National Security.

Kathy Hochul loves the real estate industry so much— and that’s what this is, anything having to do with religion is a bullshit smoke screen—that she restricted the right of all New Yorkers to protest a genocide.

There is no reason for that buffer zone to exist other than Hochul wanted to demonstrate her obedience to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and similar front organizations like End Jew Hatred who don’t want anyone, ever, to say a cross word about the genocide in Gaza, how the Iran war is only still happening because Israel insists on bombing Lebanon, and don’t even think of whispering that Jeffrey Epstein had ties to Mossad. Those files remain classified, friend, and you are anti-Semitic for even bringing that up.

By the way, gas prices is at or near $5. It will likely stay that way for at least a year. And we’re only now, heading into the Summer, about to feel the impacts of this pointless war that have left 13 soldiers dead and hundreds wounded for absolutely zero reason.

As of this writing, we still do not have a full accounting of the number of wounded soldiers and the damage done to our military installations in the Middle East. If you care at all about our troops, you should be calling for answers on this one.

Worse still—because we have a whole lot of people up here who only care about themselves—Home heating oil may be hard to come by at an affordable price. Lucky for you, we’re looking at a mild winter and an incredibly hot 2027 because of a super charged El Nino, but good luck trying to pay for groceries when your home heating oil bill is hovering at a minimum of $800 every month. If you can get that heating oil at all. Stay tuned. Those of you who have been comfortable and not afflicted by this sprawling American crisis are about to get very uncomfortable. Sorry. Guess you should have listened to us sooner!

So let’s be clear: When it comes to shortages, these things are happening specifically because of the war in Iran, which Trump started because he was accused of being a pedophile the day before he authorized military action. The war continues because Israel has decided it’s going to murder as many people as it can in order to become a regional Super Power. And very few Democrats, including our Senator, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, want to put a stop to that war.

Instead they’re spewing bullshit about how the existence of Israel is a get out of jail free card for literally anything that country wants to do, including get our soldiers killed and wounded in a pointless war.

So, here we are yet again with another reminder that the position of the New York State Democrats, knowing you have no real alternative—what are you going to do, vote for literal Nazis?—are going to keep fucking you six ways from Sunday.

Move or die.

That’s what this late budget tells us.

That’s what their lack of effort with enforcement tells us.

And that’s what they will continue to tell you until we form a new, third party. One that, right at the jump, supports a constitutional amendment here in New York that prohibits any private contributions in an election to no more than $100 and guarantees everyone the right to vote by mail.

If you want to change things, that’s how it’s going to happen.

And if you don’t think that’s possible, then you already know the answer from the New York State Democrats: Move or die.

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We just got an official announcement from the real fire company in South Blooming Grove, about the fake fire department the criminals, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein, have started up. This mirrors Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein’s attempt to create a fake ambulance service. Something the New York State Department of Health, for well over a year, refused to release any information concerning when, how, or even if, the fake EMS was permitted to operate.

To this day, the New York State Department of Health has refused to answer questions concerning the legitimacy of the EMS credentials displayed by Isaac Ekstein in his Village provided vehicle. We asked, multiple times, after Mr. Ekstein physically restrained someone, using his car, from leaving the property at 58 Fort Worth Place.

You know, the one with the helipad the FAA knows nothing about, and that the Town of Blooming Grove Police Chief refuses to act on?

(By the way, rumor is that Alex Melchiorrie, that Police Chief, is about to be shit canned, but the Town of Blooming Grove Supervisor has not replied to requests by both News 12 and The Monroe Gazette at the time of publication this morning to confirm if that is true or not. You’ll recall, Mr. Isaac Ekstein was actively involved in Mr. Melchiorrie’s campaign to become Mayor of Monroe, perhaps explaining that lack of police enforcement on a number of issues within South Blooming Grove.)

The Monroe Gazette was told last week that, after nearly two years, our Department of Health FOIL concerning the water infrastructure crisis in South Blooming Grove, caused by Stern and Ekstein, is forthcoming. (That water crisis, by the way, is also subject to an investigation by the federal EPA, as confirmed to The Monroe Gazette by two representatives of the EPA; however, due to Elon Musk’s budget cuts via DOGE, it’s not clear what the status of this investigation is. Nor is it clear if Mid-Hudson News’s Publisher, Mike Martucci, Trump’s EPA Region 2 head, is doing much of anything over at the local EPA office besides cutting staff and closing investigations. A FOIA request submitted for all of Martucci’s emails since being appointed has been, for over a year now, stuck in FOIA hell.)

The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content and the ability to comment on posts just like this one.

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What’s clear from the press release below, however, is that nobody is in charge in New York State. We asked Governor Hochul to turn over her emails to Stern and Ekstein; she delayed for over a year, and then claimed the emails were interagency. Even though that “agency” she claims to be interacting with is not a state agency, but rather Stern and Ekstein’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove.

Letitia James, our State AG, has mumbled to the press about an investigation into South Blooming Grove’s fraudulent election, orchestrated by Stern and Ekstein; however, that was almost six months ago, and she hasn’t said anything since. Whether or not other federal agencies are involved currently, we can’t say, but we can say the FBI was at least involved in investigating Stern and Ekstein as far back as 2022, and that James was sued over her inaction in 2024 by a resident of South Blooming Grove. So it’s not like her office is unaware of what’s happening here.

The Comptroller? Well, we’ll get to Thomas DiNapoli shortly with an interview featuring his primary challenger, Raj Goyle, whom we are supporting and encourage you to vote for. We interviewed Mr. Goyle about South Blooming Grove, and will share that interview next week.

Our State Reps? Assemblymen Brian Maher is nowhere to be found on issues involving South Blooming Grove. Our Orange County representative for SBG, Mike Essig, is frequently absent from County-related meetings, and is only in office because of the fraudulent election activities of Stern and Ekstein.

And Skoufis? Well, at this point, what more can be said about this man other than he’s the defining example of everything wrong with the state and national Democratic party: Wealthy, out of touch, working only for his fellow wealthy friends, and fucking you and everyone else in the process. For example, despite hundreds and thousands of New Yorkers still about to lose their health insurance, to say nothing of increasingly unaffordable increases in premiums, he refuses to support the New York Health Act. “It’s too expensive,” he says. I want you to remember that as hospitals close, emergency rooms fill, and it becomes impossible to see a doctor when you get sick.

That’s James G. Skoufis. He did that to you.

Steve Neuhaus, our County Executive, Rick Golden, our County Attorney, and the County government itself, as you can see below, only works for the wealthy. Just like Skoufis.

Nobody is in charge. If you’re poor, black, or brown, the cops will enforce the law. If you’re wealthy, white, and old? No law enforcement agency in New York State can be bothered to enforce the laws if you do something wrong.

I don’t want to hear excuses. Rebuttals. Defenses of the Democrats or the Republicans. It’s clear both parties have abandoned the people of New York and the people of the United States.

And I don’t want to hear anyone, on either side, complain about special treatment. Because none of this is about religion. That’s a smoke screen. All of this is about how, if you’re wealthy or well connected, you can get anything you want, and the rest of us can’t.

Like your own fire department:

BOARD OF FIRE COMMISSIONERSof the South Blooming Grove Fire District

PO Box 52, Blooming Grove, New York 10914

STATEMENT OF SOUTH BLOOMING GROVE FIRE DISTRICT REGARDING THE DESIGNATION BY ORANGE COUNTY OF FIRE DEPARTMENT 60 AS A RECOGNIZED MUTUAL AID FIRE DEPARTMENT

Orange County has thrown fuel on the proverbial fire by moving to recognize Department 60, a fire brigade established by the Village of South Blooming Grove, as a viable mutual aid fire department for the County.

The South Blooming Grove Fire District, notwithstanding the action of Orange County, will not be utilizing Department 60 in any way until such time as the fire brigade recognizes, understands and commits to the established chain of command of the fire service in New York State and Orange County, including recognition of the South Blooming Grove Fire District as the authority having jurisdiction for fire and rescue services within the Village, and abides by the terms of the Orange County Mutual Aid Plan and directions of the Fire District.

The Village of South Blooming Grove and its fire brigade have conducted themselves in a manner that is not trustworthy or reliable, two critical characteristics for the fire service. Despite the clarity of state law, despite the clear jurisdictional authority of the District, despite the repeated communications between the District and the Village, and despite the extensive communications with the Fire Coordinator’s office, the Village and fire brigade continues to operate as a rogue fire department. It frequently interferes with the operation of the District’s Independence Fire Company at scenes of fires and rescues, it falsely holds itself out as the legal entity for providing such services, and it essentially overpromises and underdelivers given the severe operational limitations of the brigade.

For the record, Department 60 is an exterior-only fire brigade. For the record, the District and its fire department have required the intervention of law enforcement on active scenes to remove obstacles to operations imposed by Department 60. The genuine intent of the District is to have all fire services in Orange County work cooperatively and collegially in providing essential public safety to the public. However, it will not and cannot be a party to an ill-conceived action like recognizing Department 60 that not only does nothing to enhance public safety but will likely compromise it.

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Here’s what you missed last week: a discussion between yours truly and the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, Dr. Harvey J. Kaye. Not enough people know about our lost Founding Father, but Tom Paine is a name you’re going to want to know, and whose Common Sense you’re going to want to read. It’s going to become way more important than you think right now in the years ahead. I can promise you that.

Go listen to our interview here.

If you’re not able to subscribe, or have already become a paid subscriber and want to help the cause, sharing Stupid Sexy Privacy episodes is a way you can do that.

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The Situation at the Town of Monroe Is Worse Than You Think

This is just a brief post today.

You can watch Supervisor Maureen Richardson try to dig herself out of a hole in the video below, and the picture above should give you a hint of just how big that hole is.

If you’re wondering what triggered this above video rant, you can watch:

And this

Now, to be fair, if I had to listen to this parade of idiots (below) I’d be upset too:

-Tom Lapolla, a former New York State Assembly candidate, is a walking threat to the health and safety of everyone he speaks to.

-Dorey Ghoul spent almost $500,000 on racist TV ads for her second consecutive failed state Senate campaign.

-Mike Egan was part of United Monroe, which helped create the Town of Palm Tree. He’s the last remaining vestige of United Monroe now that Tony Cardone is out doing whatever it is evil, old boomers do.

-Dan Scully, who apparently is not a fan of The Monroe Gazette (LOL). But then again, neither is our town supervisor, apparently, based on her comments, which we quoted in today’s headline.

-Abraham Flohr, one of two men responsible for installing a puppet government in the Village of Monroe. (Flohr may or may not be the mystery man disrupting the village election.)

-Carol Hawxhurst, who previously lied on behalf of the former town supervisor at multiple town meetings.

None of these people should ever again be allowed to wield power or be anywhere near it. They speak for nobody but themselves.

But.

They’re also not wrong about the Jewish Liaison thing, which we discussed yesterday.

You can watch the full meeting, below, for yourself:

Here’s what I will say for now: I’ve been aware of the issues in Monroe for about a month.

But I was finishing my book, so I couldn’t get to it sooner. The Monroe Gazette does not pay the bills — something of increasing concern because the New York state budget just passed. If you’re one of 1.2 million New Yorkers who may lose your health insurance coverage starting in July, there is no help coming.

And Democrats wonder why people vote for Trump and others like him. This is why. You have a Democratic trifecta in New York state, and one of the big achievements of the late budget was a major win for Uber and a huge loss for the environment.

But don’t worry everyone, our adulterous “populist” State Senator is going to send you an email this week about all the great things in this budget. And also how he’s “real mad” and “fought hard” but “didn’t get everything we wanted.” (Take a drink if he uses any of those actual words.)

So. At this point, I think it’s fair to say the Democratic Party of New York State is rotten to its core. All the way down to the local level. The problem is, the Republican Party has been hijacked by a fascist cult of White Supremacists. So it’s not like you're getting an alternative from them. You’re not. One is evil. The other is just corrupt.

And we really need to do something about both of them.

WHAT that thing is, we’re going to figure out together.

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How to Protect Yourself From Fascists and Weirdos, my new book, is finished. It’ll be out in (about) a month as an audiobook and a PDF. Both are being made available for free, and if you’d like to know when they’re ready, all you gotta do is subscribe to our Stupid Sexy Privacy newsletter. It’ll help keep you safe from fascists and weirdos.

We'll talk a lot more about the book later. For now, it's time to get The Monroe Gazette on track. Tell your friends we're back up and going. You can send us news, anonymously, via Signal. I can be reached at bjmendelson.32 or via the mail. If you send something by mail, please do not include a return address. Send to our anonymous P.O. box at 5, 996 Route 17, Stop 2, Arden, New York, 10910. I check it once a month. I'd check it more, but I am still without a car and will be without one for quite some time. As much as I like being an investigative journalist, it does not pay the bills. If you’d like to help keep the lights on, you can become a paid subscriber to this newsletter below.

The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we're looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content and the ability to comment on posts just like this one.

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Brigadoon Is Now Saint Levi?

Pictured Above: Woodbury resident Jimmy Ng captured one of the signs in question after learning about its existence in a Woodbury Facebook group. The one I keep telling people to avoid.

If you’re in the Families of Woodbury group, leave it and join For a Better Woodbury. Families of Woodbury has served as a vector of disinformation for people like the Fabbros and Freibands. With another election around the corner for Supervisor in the Town of Woodbury, between incumbent Supervisor Jacqueline Hernandez and Lying Luciani, you can expect Families of Woodbury and other Facebook groups controlled by Kathryn Luciani's friends to continue distributing misinformation and disinformation like they did last time.

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The sign above, translated loosely and potentially incorrectly via Google Translate, reads:

First section: “Kiryas Joel, bits of Passion.”

Second section: “Welcome, to measure the discerning guests.”

Third section: “Neighboring Saint Levi.”

We have received an updated translation for this sign:

First Section: Kiryas Yoel, founded by our holy rabbi of blessed memory.

(This is a reference to Joel Teitelbaum, who I’ll remind everyone, admonished his followers to follow the law of the land, because the law of the land is the law according to the Halakha. This is a point we’ve repeated since the start of The Monroe Gazette in 2024.

It was also flagged to us that the translation apps struggle with abbreviations. So be on the lookout for those if you attempt to translate. In this case the error translated into bits of passion instead of”founded by our holy rabbi of blessed memory.” )

Second Section: Welcome in honor of our distinguished guests.

Third Section: The neighborhood of Kedushas Levi.

(This is a reference to the book, Kedushas Levi, authored by Levi Yitzchak. In some Haredi neighborhoods there is custom to name the neighborhood after the author of an important book, referring to the book’s name in place of the author.)

While we encourage residents and readers from Rockland, Sullivan, and Orange County to use the Google Translate app on their phone to translate Yiddish into English, we have to caution that Google Translate isn't exact, and it often doesn't understand Yiddish idioms, slang, and anything else that would be considered non-standard use of my people's beloved language.

For example, I have a two-hour-or-so conversation featuring South Blooming Grove's "co-mayors", Isaac Ekstein and Joel Stern, speaking in Yiddish; however, the conversation has proven difficult to translate. This is because Stern in particular happens to use a lot of German along with his Yiddish, for example, in talking about all the fun ways that exist to use RLUIPA to get around zoning and other building regulations. RLUIPA, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, was a gift President Bill Clinton gave the Haredi and other religious groups on his way out of office to assist in Hillary Clinton's run for the Senate. We believe anyone running for Congress representing the State of New York should support the elimination of the RLUIPA law. If you agree, we hope you’ll call Pat Ryan’s DC office at (202) 225-5614, tell them you want RLUPIA to be overturned, and that you will continue to call each week until his office clarifies his position on doing so.

So. What's the deal with these signs?

The early word is that nobody seems to know. Or at least, they do not want to take credit for it. We reached out to Gedalye Szegedin, Village Administrator for the Village of Kiryas Joel, who told us that the signs were not made or distributed by the village, and that the screenshot (which you see above) is the first time he's been made aware of their existence. We’ve also reached out to the Mayor, Town Supervisor, and Chief of Police in Woodbury for comment.

Additionally, the Town of Monroe's deeply problematic "Jewish Liaison" was contacted for comment as well, since Monroe residents have reported seeing similar signs on Quaker Hill Road in the Town. (If you're wondering what makes the Jewish Liaison problematic, we'll give you a hint: Despite the name, he's not interested in serving the needs of the entire Jewish community. Just one small part of it. This wouldn't be an issue, except for the title itself and that, at the time of this writing and despite being about 40% of the community in Monroe, there is no equivalent Latino Community Liaison, creating the appearance of political favoritism. Something you'd think this Town would have been smart enough to avoid after ridding itself of Dorey Ghoul and Tony Cardone. If there's one thing we can tell you about the Town of Monroe right now, it's that they keep stepping on rakes, and Dorey Houle is mumbling about a come back. Over our dead body, Dorey.

In August 2023, Grand Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum declared multiple neighborhoods outside of the Town of Palm Tree/Village of Kiryas Joel belong to the Village of Kiryas Joel, and renamed them. This includes Woodbury Villas, which he renamed Chasam Sofer, and Country Hallow, which he renamed Chacham Tzvi. Both are located within the hamlet of Highland Mills. In Monroe, the criminal behind the Clovewood development in South Blooming Grove, Ziggy Brach, is the same man responsible for the Smith Farms development behind Shoprite, which Teitelbaum renamed Boruch Taam. (Brach is currently associated with the second, smaller annexation attempt currently going on in Woodbury. His track record in environmental fines levied by the DEC alone should be enough to disqualify any annexation attempt that man files anywhere on this Earth.)

Brigadoon, which is also in Highland Mills and where this new sign was found by Jimmy Ng and others, apparently was given a new name by the Rebbe—or another member of the administration known as Hanhallah—at some point after the Rebbe's 2023 declaration.

Or so goes the working hypothesis; however, what's more concerning is the potential that these signs didn't come from Aaron Teitelbaum at all, but came from his brother Zalman. Unlike Aaron Teitelbaum, Zalman Teitelbaum and his version of Hanhallah (Yiddish for leadership or administration, depending on your preference), have been outright hostile toward secular residents. They have broken laws left and right with impunity because New York State Attorney General Letitia James, the New York State Comptroller's Office, the New York State DEC, the New York State Department of Health, the New York State Division of Election Law Enforcement, and pretty much every department under Steve Neuhaus's purview in Orange County, have made it abundantly clear they have no interest in enforcing any laws that are broken by Zalman Teitelbaum and his criminal friends, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein. (Hence why, when The Monroe Gazette files its lawsuit against South Blooming Grove, we'll be doing so in federal court.)

We will continue to investigate the matter of these new signs and let you know what we find out. For now, we want to make a point that often gets lost in the discourse about religious freedom in the United States. Our Founding Fathers, George Washington and James Madison, among others, were adamant that you have the right to believe whatever you’d like. And that the government will play no role in obstructing you from believing whatever you wish. This is fine. Most Americans have no problem with that part. Our Haredi neighbors are our brother and sisters. All are welcomed here.

But.

Washington, Madison, and others were equally adamant that you also have the freedom from religion. Meaning, you can believe whatever you'd like, but you can't go around renaming neighborhoods that don't belong to you and claiming that they're now operating under your rules. And for those who may have forgotten, Kiryas Joel has rules, such as maintaining gender separation in public, wearing long skirts or pants, and using "appropriate language." (Something that, after living in this community on and off for almost forty years, nobody seems to be able to define for me.)

And regardless of which Teitelbaum brother is doing what, the Haredi press, such as The KJ Weekly, refers to areas controlled by Zalman Teitelbaum in South Blooming Grove as being part of the City of Kiryas Joel. That means, if these neighborhoods outside of Kiryas Joel are being declared as part of Kiryas Joel, it doesn't matter who's doing it.

What matters is the expectation that secular residents may now have to conform to someone else's religious rules while living in their own neighborhood. And don’t forget, there are many members of the Satmar community who choose to live in Woodbury and Monroe exactly because it’s not Kiryas Joel, and they are beyond the reach of the Grand Rebbe’s rules and notice. So for them, these signs may indicate that this freedom from the Rebbe may not be as complete as they’d like it to be. Especially if modesty patrols or something like them begin to circle these “new” neighborhoods looking for infractions to report.

The worst case scenario here is that a few real estate developers, like Moche Halpern's Blooming Realty, are putting up these signs in an effort to drum up business from Satmar and other Haredi relocating from New York City to find communities where there are other Satmar. If that’s so, there are far better, and less antagonistic, ways to do that. (Unless of course the antagonism is the point, which with Zalman’s group, it seems to be.)

It's clear that the real estate developers linked to Stern and Ekstein, both of whom played an active role in last year's Woodbury elections, are expecting a bonanza based on friendly elected officials in both the Town of Monroe, their new puppet government in the Village of Monroe, and support for Lying Luciani's bid to take back control of the Town of Woodbury and return it to the dark ages.

We'll bring you more on this story as it develops. For now, if you spot any more of these signs in the wild, please send them to us via Signal on bjmendelson.32.

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The book should be out as a PDF and as text in June. The MP3 recording will be out after that based on when they can get the studio and our narrator available. The book is also way longer than it was supposed to be. We thought it’d be 20,000 words. It’s (about) 40,000. Almost as long as my first book, Social Media Is Bullshit, which was 42,000 words.

This has caused a bit of a budget problem, since we only planned to record a 20,000 word book. But I’m looking to see how I can resolve that. You can help by becoming a paid subscriber to The Monroe Gazette.

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That brings us to the next book, which is about South Blooming Grove.

Specifically, the next book is the federal court case I am constructing, which will be filed pro se, against the Village concerning the repeated instances of voter fraud that have been documented in the press, shared with the FBI, and with Attorney General Letitia James going back to 2022. The court case is the book, basically. It's about how a very real case of election fraud was allowed to happen because the state of New York decided, at multiple turns, that it would be advantageous to ignore the activities of a politically powerful real estate developer, Keen Equities. Failing to intervene environmentally through the DEC, despite a municipal water and sewage infrastructure crisis through the Department of Health—not to mention the pretend fire, EMS, and police departments DOH allowed to operate alongside Orange County—right down to the local level with the Town Supervisor, Robert Jeroloman, and the Police Chief ignoring the takeoff and landing of a helicopter at an unregistered helipad, something the FAA has insisted the Police Chief, and current Village of Monroe Mayor —Alex Melchiorrie— can do something about. And let's not forget the Division of Election Law Enforcement, which told us they didn't see a problem with what was reported about South Blooming Grove, the Governor's office refusing to turn over emails sent to and from the real estate developers, and everyone's favorite adulterous "Populist" State Senator Skoufis, taking large donations from those involved and only occasionally feigning interest in solving the problems in the Village.

That brings us to this …

President Donald Trump will be in Rockland County on Friday, May 22 at Rockland Community College. I’ve applied to attend as a member of the media. The White House, so far anyway, has not replied to multiple requests for comment about the legitimate case of voter fraud presented to them in New York State, one that Trump’s archenemy, Letitia James, is covering up. One would think Trump and the MAGA people would be all over this. But while the White House has replied to every request for comment that The Monroe Gazette has sent to them, this one they won’t touch. We find that odd, don’t you? So, I’d like to get to the bottom of this. Especially because so many people in Orange County who voted for Trump did so thinking he’d “fix them.” By them, I mean our Haredi brothers and sisters. And by fix, they mean the (often correct) perception of special treatment received by government officials on the local, county, and state level.

It sure would be a shame for all those people to realize they’ve been had, you know?

MAGA wouldn’t lie to people … Would they?

So. We will be back to our normal posting soon. Closer to the end of the month. I’ve been getting calls and emails asking where I am. I am finishing my book. We’re gearing up for the next one, and The Monroe Gazette will return shortly. Thank you for your patience.

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Below is a transcript of this week’s podcast. It has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

BJ Mendelson, Host of The Monroe Gazette podcast:

Hello everyone, it’s BJ Mendelson. Welcome to another edition of the The Monroe Gazette podcast. We’re still on break, technically, until I finish my book, How to Protect Yourself from Fascists and Weirdos. I should be done next week, I hope, which we originally said was the 15th, when we’re gonna be coming back from our break. I’m gonna try very hard to meet that deadline. If I don’t, I will let you know.

We will definitely be done with the book this month.

If you would like free copy a free .PDF and a free .mp3 All you have to do is visit stupidsexyprivacy.com that’s our sister website to the Monroe Gazette. Subscribe to that newsletter and as soon as the finished PDF and mp3 are ready we’ll make sure you get a copy.

Before we get into today’s interview, I just wanted to touch on something real quick. New York Focus is a great local news resource here in New York. They cover state news and they do a pretty good job of catching stories that otherwise would fall through the cracks. So I’m a big fan of New York Focus. It’s worth a donation. But man, that doesn’t mean it’s above criticism.

So, something bad did happen over in New York focus this week. They published what is essentially a puff piece on state senator Skoufis. The headline is so nauseating it says The Young Populist Trying to Redefine the New York Democratic Party — and We Don’t Mean Mamdani.

Like, listen …

I’ve worked in PR and marketing, so I can spot these puff pieces from a mile away, because that’s what I’ve done for the last 20 years. I can’t say conclusively that The Parkside Group, which is what Mr. Skoufis has used to prop up the candidacy of a far right MAGA weirdo in Woodbury, which wasn’t too long ago, and also used it to plant voicemails to attack and otherwise defame the (now current) Monroe town supervisor.

I don’t doubt that someone from The Parkside group wrote to New York Focus with a puff piece and basically laid out everything for them and was like, “hey, Senator Skoufis is up for reelection. Look how cool he is and look at this. Look how successful he is in this red district.”

And I just want to fact check this because number one, Democrats outnumber Republicans in Orange County two to one. It is not a red district. It is not redder than almost any other place in New York. And I can say that because I have lived all over New York.

Like if you want to visit MAGA LAND go to the North Country, you will see a red district. And that’s true also, like I’ve lived down in Buffalo and the second you leave Erie County and you’re in a place like Wyoming County, where there’s more cows and people. Yeah, it’s MAGA LAND!

And I’m not, you know, that’s not an attack on those counties. It’s just me pointing out. Factually that it’s very misleading to portray Orange County as MAGA LAND and that Skoufis is some kind of bastion against the bulwark of MAGA because he’s not. The only reason why this man has any sort of political career is because of corporate donors. If you go and look at his finances, you can see that he’s raised over $6 million.

The other reason that he’s done as well as he has is because there is a large group of people who do come out and vote for him consistently, who are atypical when we look at the rest of New York state. If you look at the rest of New York state, we’re unique in Orange County in that we do have a large population of Satmar voters. Many of whom, not all, and I want to underline the words, not all, tend to vote based on what Anash tells them, which is the majority party in Kiryas Joel, for example, or what the criminals in South Blooming Grove, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein tell people.

So to portray this man, Skoufis, as being some kind of like progressive agent or a populist agent who’s changing the Democratic Party and challenging the establishment in New York? No, that man is the establishment.

This is a man who’s told people, I support New York for all, and then came out just recently against it. This is a man who, despite the fact that 1.2 million people in New York state are going to lose their health insurance by the end of this year. Skoufis is the man who said, I don’t want to vote for the New York Health Act because it’s too expensive.

This is not a populist.

So I recommend New York Focus. I do think you should check it out. But I saw that and I was just really disappointed. And I needed to tell someone how disappointed I was. This article did not pass the smell test. This looks like a PR puff piece. And I wanted you to know about it because you’re gonna hear in this discussion in today’s episode about how Skoufis has actively worked against the rights of immigrant communities that live here in New York State and immigrant families. That is not a populist. That is a con artist.

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BJ Mendelson, Host of The Monroe Gazette podcast: Hi Rosa, thank you so much for joining us today. Would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself to our audience?

Rosa Cohen-Cruz, Director of Immigration Policy with the Bronx Defenders: Sure, my name is Rosa Cohen Cruz. I’m the Director of Immigration Policy with the Bronx Defenders.

BJ Mendelson: And can you tell us a little bit about what the Bronx Defenders does?

Rosa Cohen-Cruz: Yeah, the Bronx Defenders is a large public defender not-for-profit that represents people in criminal court, in family court, in immigration court, housing court, and is really one of the organizations that pioneered this model of holistic defense. Were we’re making sure that we’re representing people and providing services for all aspects of the people we serve, not just like one niche legal area.

BJ: And have you had any any people that you represent that have been sent to Orange County Jail for one reason or another?

Rosa: Yeah, so we are NYIFUP providers, which is the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. Brooklyn Defender Services, Bronx Defender Services and Legal Aid together have been providing universal representation to people in New York who are detained while facing their deportation cases. And we have many, many clients who are at Orange County jail; and over the years have represented many people detained at the Orange County jail.

BJ: Is there any particular issues that stand out or instances that come to mind involving the jail that you think people should know about?

Rosa: Yeah, the Orange County jail is sort of notoriously one of the worst detention centers that we have had. Where we have had clients. a couple of years ago, there was a reporter that looked at complaints of, harassment by guards and medical issues and various things across all detention centers across the nation. And he sort of picked out some of the worst ones and Orange County Jail was one of the ones that he picked out as, you know, being particularly bad for medical neglect and abuse by guards.

And so, I think that has definitely been the experience of the people we’ve represented. We’ve seen people go in healthy and come out with long term chronic illnesses that really developed because of their mistreatment at the facility. I’m sure you’re well aware that there was recently a report done by NYLPI about the medical neglect at the jail. And it has really been a place where we have seen people suffer and deteriorate. We’ve seen mental health, decompensation. We’ve seen people with strong claims for relief from their removal cases give up because of how horrific the conditions in the facility have been.

BJ: It’s crazy to hear about because if you watch the legislative meetings for Orange County, we spend a lot of money on that jail. And my impression is that that money is not making its way towards better treatment for the people that are detained there. Is that right?

Rosa: I don’t know the ins and outs of how the legislature spends its money, but I can certainly say that whatever financial decisions they’re making, it is not translating into people being well cared for at the facility. People have been suffering there for years. In the summer, we hear complaints about it being extremely hot in the facility. In the winter, we hear complaints about it being extremely cold, about people not being able to access enough blankets or ways to stay warm.

We hear about medical neglect. We hear about the food being rotten. That’s been something that’s been shared for years and years. We hear about guards verbally abusing the people who are in detention there. Bronx Defenders was as part of a lawsuit against Orange County Jail for for transferring people in retaliation for hunger strikes several years ago.

And those people had been protesting the conditions in the facility. So we have years and years and years of evidence of just how harmful this facility in particular has been, how much pain and damage it has caused to our fellow New Yorkers who have been forced to be caged there.

BJ: I couldn’t help but notice that much of these complaints seem to correlate with the emergence of County Executive Steve Neuhaus at the helm of Orange County. The hunger strike goes back to the time where he took over or just after he took over as County Executive. Has anyone tried to bring these issues and concerns to the County Executive Neuhaus

Rosa: Well, the Dignity Not Detention Coalition has been engaged, which the Bronx Defenders is part of, we have been engaging more with him and more with the legislature this year. There have been different points where we had tried to engage with various success, but this year we’ve had, I think we’ve had more success. Of course, this is the year that the state is also finally taking notice of just how horrific things have been this whole time. And I think recognizing that it is morally reprehensible to accept money from ICE to allow them to be caging our neighbors and destroying our communities this way. We’re happy to see that the governor’s, that the proposal, the budget proposal for immigration this year includes ending the IGSA intergovernmental service agreements between local jails and ICE.

BJ: You beat me to it.

Rosa: (Laughs)

BJ: So I was going to mention first, the Dignity Not Detention Coalition before we get to the other stuff. But just tell us a little bit about the coalition and how it came about and what it’s fighting for?

Rosa: Yeah the Dignity and Not Detention Coalition has been around for many years. it has always been around to end ice detention, first in New Jersey, then in New York, really for the places where New Yorkers have largely been held.

A similar bill to Dignity not Detention, the banning of these intergovernmental service agreements did pass in New Jersey. Those jails all ended their contracts. There used to be three jails in New Jersey that had these types of programs. And now after that, win, we turned the focus to New York state and felt that New York state was really behind having not passed these laws when other states like New Jersey and Illinois had successfully banned the IGSA agreements.

In fact, earlier this year, New Mexico even beat New York to this. So, you know, New York is not actually a leader on this issue at all. But the coalition has been really incredible. It is a mix of advocates through not-for-profits, attorneys who represent people in removal proceedings. There are many, many, many volunteers through Indivisible and For the Many, the DSA, and SURJ NYC who are just part of this coalition because they believe in the mission of ending ICE detention here. There are incredible legal service providers that are part of the group and it is a statewide group as well. So you have people from Orange County who have become involved. You have people from Long Island. You have people from Western New York and New York City all working together towards this goal. So the Bronx Defenders has been one of the core members of the group as have Envision Freedom Fund, BAJI, Center for Constitutional Rights, Critical Resistance, Columbia County Sanctuary Movement. I mean, so many, so many groups, I could just keep going, but it’s been a really incredible coalition. And the one other thing I’ll say about it that I think is so unique is that we’ve always worked really closely with folks who are in the facilities, and really being led by folks on the inside to make sure that we’re listening to them and supporting them. So there’s a whole group that works on being connected to folks who are behind bars in immigrant detention and making sure that they have what they need to be able to sort of be in the movement as well.

BJ: Now let me ask you a little bit about the bill itself. So we’re recording this on Friday, May 8th. There seems to be maybe a budget agreement. There’s some dispute as to whether or not there is. My understanding is that the Melt Act is essentially going to be incorporated. So there’s not going to be masks allowed for ICE.

You mentioned detentions on behalf of ICE at places like OCJ also would be canceled out.

But is there any part of dignity not detention that has so far made its way into the budget that was announced?

Rosa: So the core of Dignity not Detention has always been ending the intergovernmental service agreements, the ICE contracts with local jails for detention purposes, because ICE has always relied on local jails to expand attention. And we’ve always believed that New York resources should be for New Yorkers and not for furthering ICE’s mission.

That piece of the bill, the ending the IGSA agreements, that has been the core of Dignity Not Detention and that is as far as we understand in the budget. So that’s very exciting and that’s a huge, huge testament to Assemblymember Reyes and Senator Salazar who are the Dignity Not Detention sponsors who have really worked tirelessly to make sure that this stayed a priority in the budget this year.

And alongside that, there are some other provisions around making sure New York is not a prime area to expand ICE detention in other ways. Thinking of the warehouse issue, for example. so I think that I have not seen language, but my understanding is that what is in the budget approaches some of the same issues that are approached in the Dignity Not Detention legislation. But through slightly different avenues. In our view, as long as it accomplishes the same goals of not allowing ICE detention to expand in our state, we see it as a huge win. And we very much welcome the Dignity Not Detention provisions and goals to be accomplished this way in the budget.

BJ: You mentioned two great members of the Senate and assembly. As you might be familiar, Orange County sort of has the opposite problem, right? Where we have state Senator Skoufis who told people he was for New York for All before he came out against it recently. We have Paula Kay who is for New York for all but doesn’t want her name on it. And then of course we have Brabenec and Maher who, as Republicans, don’t really want to participate in much of anything.

So what has that been like with when you encounter resistance among Democrats in New York State government? Like is there something that you would tell people in Orange County that are listening to this and kind of frustrated at the situation

Rosa: I have been very impressed by some of the local legislators in Orange County. I’ll start there and say that there are local legislators who have really listened and taken this very seriously and who I think really came to see what a huge stain it is on the county to have been participating in torturing New Yorkers like this for years and years. So I need to give them credit.

But it is true that there are many, and especially at the state level, who don’t understand or don’t care that it is morally reprehensible to allow our state resources to be used to cause the death of our neighbors. There was a death in Long Island in the Nassau County Jail because of someone who is picked up pursuant to a 287-G agreement.

So we saw right there the way ICE collusion literally led to the death of a New Yorker and no one did anything about it. Governor Hochul has continued to come out and say, a tragedy, and it is a true tragedy what happened to Mr. Alam out in Erie County, yet none of the things she has proposed would have even come close to protecting him. And I think that people should really scrutinize legislators who say they care about immigrants, but are unwilling to pass measures that would have, you know, could save lives.

There’s no reason for us to be using our enforcement resources to funnel people into ICE detention, where we know people are tortured and killed. Yet the legislature and the governor are, we’re only able to end the detention side of things. But we’re unwilling to really meaningfully address the collusion that funnels people in the first place, which is where New York for All Act would have played a really critical role.

So, I just urge listeners to hold their legislators accountable to the ones that didn’t stand up for immigrants. Truly, this session, they should know that they failed to meet the moment.

BJ: To me, it also represents a failure to just uphold the Constitution. You know, the 14th Amendment guarantees that all people, regardless of citizenship, are treated equally under the law. And to me, Skoufis in particular, Kay, Eachus …

And to me, it’s just a failure to just uphold the Constitution as well. Because as we know with Alex Pretti and Renee Good, these actions tend to bring in people who you might not think are being targeted, but it affects all of us. This is something that affects all of us no matter the issue. And so to that point, I know it’s a little tricky because the again, we don’t know what the final thing is going to look like at the time we’re recording this, but what comes next?

So let’s say...Dignity Not Detention and MELT for the most part are in, New York for all is kinda out. So what does the coalition do next?

Rosa: Well, the Dignity Not Detention Coalition has always been really supportive of New York for All. And we had a rally in Albany a couple of weeks ago where we stood with them, knowing that it was likely that our goals were going to be accomplished. Many of us are … I sit on a steering committee [concerning] New York for All, and I’m also very involved in Dignity Not Detention. And there’s many of us that are in both spaces as well. So I think that it is extremely likely that we continue to see the support of those who are in the Dignity Not Detention Coalition continuing to push for New York for All. I know that we’re going to continue pushing for New York for All because it is truly what is needed to meet the moment. It’s good that we are divesting from ICE detention. It is good that we are saying New York’s resources are not going to be furthering ICE detention, but …

We can’t do that with one hand while also continuing to funnel our neighbors and community members into ICE detention with the other. So New York for All is sorely needed. And it’s no coincidence that Assemblymember Reyes was the sponsor of both of those bills. Those bills have always been companion bills and we always wanted them to get done together. So we’ll definitely keep pushing for a New York for All and for the full comprehensive divestment from collusion with ICE that the state really should be standing for in this moment.

BJ: I think it’s fair to say that the people listening to this podcast already kind of know the score with Skoufis Eachus Brabenec Maher and Kay. But What can we do as residents of Orange County? Both on the Dignity Not Detention front, but also just in terms of assisting the coalition towards the greater effort of New York for All.

Rosa: There was a rumor, or not a rumor, a talking point that was sort of spread around. And I certainly heard Senator Skoufis say this, and I’m sure others did too, that New York for all was just a New York City issue and that immigrants really just live in New York City. So why should we be passing this statewide bill when New York City always has protections? So I think it is really critically important for places like Orange County, to be speaking loudly in favor of this.

To be talking about their neighbors and community members who need New York for all to pass. We’ve seen extreme harm happening in places like Port Chester, New York, which doesn’t even have a 287-G agreement, or Erie County, or across the state. Immigrants living in all of these counties, all of these communities who are afraid to go to work and go to take their children to school and to engage with the public life because of fear that it will lead to an interaction that will cause them to be funneled into ICE detention.

And I think it is more important than ever for lawmakers to hear from folks in Orange County and from folks across the state that we all want this, that this is a statewide issue that the majority, the Democrats really want and that it will, that it is we are truly being represented by our elected officials, then they need to be heeding the call of what people in New York are asking for.

And right now, New York for All has been loudly called for, but elected officials are not going to deliver this session.

BJ: I I asked Senator Gournardes this a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, where I said, you know, January 7th, you were all back in session. New York State has a democratic trifecta. So why wasn’t New York for all it passed? Why wasn’t dignity and non-detention passed on day one?

And the truth of the matter is that New York State Democrats, some of them anyway, are more interested in representing the wealthy than the rest of us.

So to that point, is there anything on this topic I didn’t get to, that you would like to bring up or share with your audience?

Rosa: You know, I think some people are going to say about the ending of the IGSA agreements in particular, I think some people are going to say, well, it’s better to have people in New York than to have them in these other places. And we’ve already heard that. That we shouldn’t be ending ICE contracts here for that reason.

I wanna make sure people know the reality of what is happening right now. The first and most important thing is that everyone is being transferred all the time. Like the fact that we have detention centers in New York does not mean people stay in New York. And in fact, what we’ve seen happen, we’ve seen patterns where the Orange County Jail will be emptied out so they can do mass raids in New York City, or so they can do mass arrests across the state. So. A huge part of eliminating local detention capacity has always been connected to making sure that they don’t have the ability to do this massive enforcement and just put everybody into facilities in New York.

So we do think that there’s an important correlation between detention availability and enforcement aggression. And we hope that this bill really, that the IGSA ban coming into effect will really help limit enforcement. Of course, we also need to see the New York for All Act passed to fully realize that goal.

BJ: Before you go, tell us, where do we find you? Where do we find the coalition? How can we get involved?

Rosa: We do have an Instagram in on the coalition where there will be updates. I think as everything comes out, you know, there’s going to be a lot of guidance about what it all means and what to expect.

The Instagram is @Abolish ICE NY-NJ. Please do follow us. We also have a New York for all Instagram, which is @ny4all_. and that’s where there will be campaign updates and calls to action.

But I also want to just take one moment and say thank you to the folks in Orange County. You guys have really stood with us this year with the Dignity Not Detention Coalition in particular. I know, you know, we did a rally together last month and, you know, we stood side by side fighting against the warehouses and we’ve been really, it has been really wonderful to be working so closely with folks on the ground fighting in their own communities.

So I just wanted to also express gratitude to those of you on the ground showing up every day to protest what’s happening. And that’s how we’re gonna make this kind of change. So thank you.

Pictured Above: A flyer for an event put on by a new local community group, Hudson Valley Caracoles. We’d like to encourage you to attend. Below, Little Dick Energy State Senator Skoufis tries to weasel out of supporting a bill he told numerous Orange County constituents that he supported. He’s not the only Democrat to do so, as you’ll see in today’s post.

This man has no reproductive organs to speak of.

Yasmine Farhang, whom we spoke to in this podcast interview below, commented on the State Senator’s response, sharing with us:

Senator Skouffis’s attempt to rationalize his opposition to New York for All false flat. His rhetoric seeks to demonize New Yorkers by fear-mongering and mis-leading his constituents. He fails to recognize the beliefs that so many New Yorkers hold close - that the importance of keeping families and communities together is bound up with the importance of upholding due process for all. For years, ICE entanglement with state and local agencies has enabled the cruel separation of family members across our state - this includes many people who face disproportionate policing, as well as those who are convicted of crimes and serve prison sentences only to then face a cruel double punishment when funneled to ICE detention and deportation. The bottom line - New York resources must not be used to fuel a federal mass deportation agenda, especially when sending people to ICE is increasingly deadly. I reject Senator Skouffi’s attempt to divide us and we will continue to stand united in calling for New York for All.

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The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. There may be errors as it was generated by an AI and read over by BJ, who usually misses a ton of typos on the first read through.

BJ Mendelson, Editor of The Monroe Gazette: Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of The Monroe Gazette podcast. I’m your host, BJ Mendelson. We have two interviews to bring to you today. Both are related to New York for All and some of the activity going on in our community to promote bills such as New York for All and Dignity Not Detention

I just wanted to say something real quick. So I am working on finishing my book, How to Protect Yourself from Fascists and Weirdos. It was supposed to be out in February. We basically went and ripped up the whole thing after Alex Pretti was murdered. I thought about doing it after Renee Good was killed, then when Alex Pretti was murdered, we got pushed over the threshold of … You know, needing to redo the entire book. So we rewrote it. We rewrote the entire thing. So it’ll be out. It looks like the end of May. I need to do a lot of stuff to get it ready.

This is all a long way of saying that May is probably going to be a quiet month on the Monroe Gazette, just so that I can get the book out. My expectation is that things will be fairly quiet until about May 15th. At that point, I will be done. And then other people will hopefully get involved and finish up the actual production of the book and then I can move on to other things. And then at that point, I’ve been thinking of doing some major changes to the The Monroe Gazette

Originally we had two goals. And the first goal was get Tony Cardone out of office, which we succeed in doing. And then the other goal was to sort of document everything that’s happening in South Blooming Grove and try to bring Joel Stern and Isaac Eckstein to justice.

So, I mean, we filed three lawsuits so far, and that’s not counting the federal one involving the stolen election. And it doesn’t involve the one with like the 26 residents who are going to file suit to have the village actually audited, because there’s no way Thomas DiNapoli, in an election year, is ever going to release that South Blooming Grove audit. So we figured we were going to sue.

My expectation is to focus on South Blooming Grove and then what’s going on over in Sullivan County with Kiryas Skever.

I can’t cover everything. And so there’s, there’s a certain like Maginot Line. I don’t know how many of you know what the Maginot Line but like the Maginot Line was basically a barrier that the French created after World War I, where they thought that they would be able to keep the Germans out by building this big ass fortification, which of course did not work at all. It did not work.

So I kind of look at [this situation] as crossing the Maginot Line. Crossing the threshold. And we’re definitely at the Maginot Line in terms of like the Monroe Gazette in terms of like its finances. I held on for as long as I could for about two years doing it at a loss. I can’t keep doing that. So in order for it to continue as a publication, it definitely needs to expand its scope a bit in terms of what it covers. So I’m kind of leaning towards just doing like this radical change of focusing again on South Blooming Grove, Kiryas Skever as opposed to sort of the local news. That doesn’t mean we won’t cover the local news. There’s certainly things that’ll come up that are important and that we’ll write about, but it’s just not something that I’m gonna spend so much time on. So I’m telling you this in advance.

We’re gonna take a short break. We’ll be back on or around May 15th or probably after that when the book is done. And then after that, we’re gonna kind of…figure out what exactly the Monroe Gazette is going to be covering and what it’s not going to be covering because it just can’t, it can’t continue in the shape that it is.

But for now we have two wonderful interviews that we’re going to share with you concerning New York For All. The reason why I went on this whole tangent is because something that really frustrates me is that people don’t want preferential treatment for the Haredi. But those same people don’t want the law to be applied to people that are here, quote unquote, illegally. Again, no one here in America is here illegally. Technically, we’re all here illegally. We’re living on stolen Indian land. That’s a whole other thing. But it doesn’t matter what we think. It doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter what I think, because what matters is what the Constitution thinks. And the Constitution thinks in the 14th Amendment that the law of the United States applies to everyone equally, regardless of whether or not they are a citizen.

And so I kind of struggle with this thing of, you know, you don’t want preferential treatment for the Satmar which I understand, but at the same time, you’re saying the law shouldn’t count towards people that are here, quote unquote, illegally. So my thing, the reason why we talk as much as we do about New York for all, Dignity Not Detention, and some of these other things is because our philosophy at the Monroe Gazette is very simple: Everybody counts. Everybody.

And that’s sort where we’re coming from in our coverage of South Blooming Grove plus Kiryas Skever plus things like New York for All.

So I just want people to understand why we spend as much time talking about it as we do, because we think it’s important, because we think everyone counts. And with that said, let’s get right to those interviews.

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Interview #1 Yasmine Farhang

Yasmine Farhang, Executive Director of the Immigrant Defense Project: My name is Yasmine Farhang and I’m the executive director of the Immigrant Defense Project. And for those who are not familiar with IDP, we have been around for almost 30 years and we fight for justice for immigrants who are impacted at the intersections of the immigration legal system and the criminal legal system.

BJ: Can you give us an example of that? Because I try to explain to people that being here in a country, quote unquote, illegally is not actually a criminal offense. It’s a civil offense. Is that right?

Yasmine: So IDP was born in the wake of the 1996 immigration laws, which passed Congress and were signed by former President Clinton, which were some of the most draconian immigration laws that kind of shaped the detention and deportation system that we have today. But what people might be less familiar with is that those laws also bound up the criminal legal and the immigration legal systems together to really try to use kind of the policing, the worst of kind of racist policing and the criminal injustice and the criminal legal system to also funnel people to ICE detention and deportation.

So, at IDP, we have a really core principle and that principle is that everyone deserves dignity and nobody is disposable. And we know we also approach this work from a racial justice lens and we know that disproportionately black immigrants and immigrants of color are disproportionately impacted at the intersection of those systems. And so, you know, that has been our mission for the last 30 years. And of course, the systems that were built back then are being supercharged now.

BJ: Previously we had Senator Andrew Gounardes is the co-sponsor of New York for All. He’s walked us through what the bill does and what it doesn’t do. I’d to hear your perspective on New York for All, why it’s important and what it does.

Yasmine: Absolutely. So New York for All, it really is there in the name. it’s really about ensuring that all New Yorkers all around our state, no matter what county they’re living in, no matter what their immigration status are, can rely on the ability to participate in their communities and all the daily ways that immigrants do right through their families, through their workplaces, through their places of worship, through, you know, any other number of things without having to worry that local and or state resources are going to be used or the local and state agencies that they interact with every day, like local law enforcement, like shelters, like hospitals and schools, that those agencies are going to be used to funnel their information to ICE and that those agencies are going to be, putting them at risk of ICE detention and deportation.

And this isn’t actually a novel idea. The idea of having these kind of broad prohibitions on local and state resources being used for a federal deportation agenda is not new. And in fact, the first Trump administration, many other states around the country passed legislation to do just that because one of the few things that states can do in the face of a deportation agenda as a mass deportation agenda as we have today, is to actually say, we’re not participating, right? We’re not going to be part of this harm.

So the first Trump administration, we saw Illinois and Washington and Oregon and California pass these laws and we had this bill in New York back then and yet it never got over the finish line. And so here we are all these years later under a second Trump administration with obviously a more increasingly harmful and deadly and authoritarian reign every day.

And yet this bill has still not passed.

BJ: Right. Yeah. It’s outrageous to me. I asked Senator Gounardes why on January 7th when we have a democratic trifecta and everyone was back to work in New York State government, why wasn’t this passed on day one?

It’s deeply frustrating and speaking of frustrating I wanted to read to you I was forwarded an email from the Monroe Town Supervisor Maureen RIchardson. There was a group of residents who have been pushing for a ceremonial resolution that the town would pass in support of New York for All because our state representative Senator Skoufis does not support New York for all. He says he does, but then we’ve also gotten reports from people where he’s alleged to actively try to undermine it so …

We were trying to get like these ceremonial resolutions passed to kind of push Skoufis and the rest of New York State Democrats to support the bill because in Monroe, you know, we have about 40% of our population is Latino and we have a significant undocumented population that’s been terrorized by ICE since at least this summer. I’m just gonna read these to you real quick. So this is from the town supervisor in Monroe, Maureen Richardson, writing to a constituent. She said:

“I have since looked into New York for All and I don’t support the bill. It does not appropriately address the issues at hand.”

(She doesn’t say what the issues are)

“… and limits the functionality of local police in any even perceived quote collaboration with federal agencies on immigration issues. This has been criticized as overly restrictive and imputing daily functions even by allies with experience in PD. So no, thank you.”

BJ: I was really disappointed to see that and to read that. And I’ve heard that same criticism of the bill come up. So I was hoping you might be able to speak to that.

Yasmine: I think fundamentally we know that all New Yorkers want safety, right? And there’s this way in which safety is talked about in a way that suggests that safety is about some people against some other people, right? And we know that that’s not true. And we know that, the way that safety is defined and who it’s for is really, really important. And, the New York for All Act is in fact a bill that’s about creating more safety for all New Yorkers.

So when people think about sanctuary policies, whether it’s at the local level or the state level, I think often they think about this as a sort of special policy for some people when in reality these policies are critical to everyone’s safety, right? So if somebody is experiencing, unsafe conditions in their home, unsafe conditions in their building where they live with other residents, we want that person to report those conditions. We want them to share what’s happening and to seek help and to seek oversight of what’s going on.

If somebody is experiencing labor exploitation, We want them to be able to report that and to expose that and to be able to seek help from relevant local and state agencies. And similarly, if somebody is a survivor of violence. We want them to be able to avail themselves of whatever services or programs they might need for themselves or their families.

But if people feel that they cannot reach out for help, they cannot share information, whether it’s for themselves, for their loved ones, or for that neighbor, that puts everybody at risk. That puts everybody at risk of a variety of harms.

And what we know from the work that we have done to document some instances of local law enforcement, police around the state in particular, colluding with ICE over the course of the past year is that often what we’re seeing around New York state are really egregious and very clear instances of racial profiling, right, of police, local law enforcement stopping somebody we know from the work that we have done, instances of local law enforcement police around the state in particular commuting with ICE over the course of the past year is that often what we’re seeing around the world state are really egregious and really serious instances of racial profiling, right? As we believe in your philosophy of stopping ostensibly because they want to question them or they are investigating something.

But, you know, the ultimate conclusion is that they are handing this person over to ICE and that was often very clearly their principal goal in the first place. So we see that with many instances of policing and actually if you go to our website of immigrantdefenseproject.org, there’s a tab under resources for what’s called the New York ICE Collusion Watch. We have a map there where we’re kind of focusing on the police to deportation pipeline by really exposing these patterns, right?

And you know, whether it’s a phone call from a local police officer that brings in an ICE agent or state troopers pulling someone over or, county signing a formal 287-G agreement, we’re seeing all the ways in which this police to deportation pipeline unfortunately is very, very active in New York.

I want to just tell one story to kind of illustrate the harms. and this is a perfect example. Also, I think people are aware that we have, you here in New York City, we do have some protective laws, right, around sanctuary that were passed over a decade ago. They need to be strengthened. But we do have those. And yet when you leave the confines of New York City, what, you know, the collusion with ICE changes drastically. And just north of the city in Port Chester, New York. In January, there was a story of a community member. He was headed to the train on his way home from work, and he was stopped by Port Chester police on the sidewalk. And they informed him that they were going to give him a ticket for having an open container violation. Instead of giving him a ticket, they put him in handcuffs. They took him to the precinct. They asked him whether he had papers. And then they put him in a cell. And shortly after ICE came and detained him, and he was transferred far from New York, and he was in ICE detention for for months.

Later, that open container citation that he was told he was getting in the first place, that was actually dismissed, Much later, that was dismissed. And I think this is exactly an example of sort of the way in which policing tactics are really being used for purposes of ensuring that they can funnel someone to ICE custody. So I think it’s certainly not the sort of racial profiling and kind of arbitrary decisions by police officer without any kind of state regulations restricting them is very dangerous for New Yorkers around the country. And then for those in the criminal legal system who do have convictions, right? And who are for being a sentence or who are on probation or whatever it might be for them to then complete their sentence or complete their probation or whatever it might be.

And then from there, be funneled to ICE detention is a really cruel form of double punishment for people who should be able to go back home to their families, go back to their communities. And the loss and the harm that it causes not just to the individual, but to their family members, is really awful.

BJ: Absolutely. And the thing I want to point out to listeners is we’ve seen both sides of the policing coin here in Orange County. On one hand, the village of Monroe Police Department. I personally find them to be trustworthy and transparent on this issue. And they’ve repeatedly told both the Monroe Gazette and other media outlets and the public that ICE just appears like they don’t have any communication with them. They don’t even know when ICE is going to show up which is disturbing, like on a whole, like that’s a whole other set of issues, right? Where you just have this rogue agency appearing.

But on the other side, we have Orange County, which does house ICE detainees, over 100 of them at Orange County Jail, who lacks any sort of transparency. Like right now, we are fighting with them over FOIL requests for all of their communications to ICE and ICE representatives, which they will not share. So. It’s sort of this like, don’t know if I can completely trust the police given behavior like what we see with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Let me ask you a little bit about this weak, watered down proposal from Governor Hochul. Could you explain that to listeners and why it’s not the way to go?

Yasmine: We obviously have been pushing for New York for All for years. And, we thought that this was exactly the moment where the legislature and the governor would come together and recognize that this is the time for a comprehensive solution, We can’t have a piecemeal approach that creates some limited protections in some places and not in other places. And so, after the governor first announced her bill, the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, that bill includes a provision that would end 287-G agreements, these formal agreements between ICE and local law enforcement.

And we know that that was a meaningful step. But when we look at the harms that we are seeing every day, like the story of the community member in Port Chester that I just described, none those would be protected by her bill. Because these are the actions of police officers that are making in counties and towns and cities that are making choices to engage in this kind of collusion with ICE, even without a 287-G agreement.

And so we continue to sound the alarm bell that we needed New York for all in its entirety. And unfortunately, what the governor came back with, not once, but twice, was a proposal that would actually still empower the police to use their unfettered discretion to decide whether or not they’re gonna notify ICE of someone.

So first she [Hochul] came out with a proposal using this kind of probable cause framework, That as long as the police officer has probable cause to make an arrest, that they can then notify ICE, share personally identifying information about someone. First of all, it’s deeply dangerous. It flies in the face of due process and presumption of innocence that all New Yorkers are entitled to, to funnel someone to ICE when they’ve just been arrested.

But secondly, it would just give total deference to police officers to decide, whether or not they have the ability to notify ICE. So the governor came back with a second proposal that was arguably even worse. So that proposal essentially creates a way for any local law enforcement to only have to say that they’re investigating a crime in order to notify ICE.

So that could be something as simple as, somebody is stopped in their car while driving. A police officer looks in the back seat. Maybe they see a bag. They decide that they, have a concern about that, they want to initiate an investigation, they can articulate this, and they can say, I’m now kind of investigating a crime; and I’m going to, as a result, I have the ability to notify ICE about this person.

There’s no legal standard around what she was proposing. It’s really made up. It incentivizes the worst of racial profiling and discriminatory policing. And I think what’s worse is that we were trying to be sold on this as some kind of meaningful step to curtailing the collusion and the police to deportation pipeline when, in fact, it was actually taking an area where the law is currently silent and codifying a way in which police would be authorized to notify ICE.

So it was actually not just not going far enough. It was taking us backwards.

I think advocates and not just advocates in the coalition, but immigrant rights advocates, civil rights advocates, faith leaders, labor unions, you know, people responded very quickly and very robustly to these proposals and said, no, we don’t want this, right?

We don’t want you to give law enforcement this kind of unfettered discretion. So our understanding as of yesterday is that that provision that’s in the budget that the governor was trying to sell us on has been removed. And so that’s great. And yet also it is deeply disappointing that we are in a position where we have to be fighting off these harmful provisions rather than celebrating a comprehensive bill.

And, one other thing I’ll note is that we’ve also been tried to be sold on the idea that this is about protecting victims. And there was some language in this provision that sort of they would be able to exempt victims as though, police would be making that determination when they’re in these, in these circumstances. But the idea that police in any meaningful way would be making that determination about who they or aren’t funneling to ICE is really concerning. Often victims themselves face allegations. Not to mention there are cross complaints. It’s not a workable approach.

Often victims themselves face allegations and not to mention that there are cross-complaints, right? So it’s not a workable approach. And the last thing I’ll say is that, you know, we are calling for New York for All we want it in its entirety. This is the long-term solution. But I would say that advocates have put forward more incremental ideas. That would be more about kind of creating more building blocks towards restricting collusion. But those have not been entertained by the governor.

Anything that doesn’t hinge on an officer having unfettered discretion has been out outrightly rejected.

BJ: And that echoes the other statement we have from Supervisor Richardson where she had forwarded the email that I was reading from to State Senator Skoufis’ staff noting her quote, “vocal dislike of New York for all because it removes local authority from local boards and police and how they choose to run their own locally funded police.”

Where do things stand right now? Because people will be listening to this. Hopefully, they’ll be on strike. Tomorrow is May 1st. This episode will be out May 1st. No school, no shopping, no work for May Day.

And ideally, I have a sneaking suspicion that the budget situation won’t be resolved. So if they’re listening to this on Friday, May 1st, what should they know about where are we right now?

Yasmine: Well, one thing I want to say first, because listeners will be tuning in on May 1st, is that I think it’s one thing that’s been really incredible and encouraging to see is that we have seen a huge show of support for New York for All from labor unions over the course of not just the past year, over the course of the past several years. It was just before May 1st last year that a dozen unions wrote a letter to the governor and the Senate majority leader and the assembly speaker explaining that New York for All is necessary to protect workers, right?

And to protect the right to organize. Unfortunately, we are here a year later without New York for all having having passed, but labor unions have continued to be some of our strongest allies. So I wanted to just name that. And then in terms of where things are at, we know that there is a package being negotiated in the budget that will have provisions that are related to immigration.

And we know that there will be some things in there that people will celebrate. And some of those may be meaningful steps and some of them may be quite hollow and quite superficial in terms of actually having an impact to New Yorkers.

We know that no matter what happens in the budget though, that we as a coalition and with our allies, we are going to be right back there in Albany after the budget for the rest of the legislative session. Urging our state leadership and the governor to take action. They may say they’re done, but we’re not done. We will see what the budget has once it’s completed, that is not going to dictate our continued organizing and advocacy to get the actual solution we need.

BJ: My last question for you is for people in Orange County, it can be frustrating because we have a state senator who tells you he supports New York for All, but he’s alleged to be actively undermining it.

And then we have three assembly representatives in Paula Kay, Chris Eachus, and Karl Brabenec. [And Brian Maher.]

Brabenec being a Republican, he doesn’t support the bill. Kay says she supports the bill, but doesn’t want her name on it. And Eachus does whatever Skoufis tells him. So it can be really frustrating for Orange County residents when it comes to their state representatives.

What can we do? What can people listening to this do that want to support the Immigrant Defense Project and want to help pass New York for All given our representative limitations?

Yasmine: First I’ll say that we’ve been very lucky to have such strong sponsors on our bills. I, you know, we’re incredibly grateful to both Senator Gounardes as an assembly member, Reyes, for being such champions on New York for All. And I will say we have many champions and that is part of what has has kept up the momentum, right, who have joined us ⁓ in this fight.

And then we know that there are those who might have their name on it, but are not really doing much else or who are actively opposing it. And what I would say is that, for people in communities with representatives who are turning away from this and not understanding how key this is, not to let them look away from the stories. We know, and again, folks should go on our website and check out our map, New York Ice Collusion Watch.

It certainly is not comprehensive, right? This is through anecdotes and that we confirm once people share them and folks should feel free to reach out. But we want to make sure that people are humanizing kind of the impact and not letting their representatives off the hook.

We saw the tragic death of Mr. Alam, earlier this year, would likely still be alive today if it weren’t for the fact that, local law enforcement had shared his information with ICE and CBP.

And yet, we saw so many legislators say that they stand with him and with his family. We saw the say that she stands with his family. And yet, I think that hypocrisy needs to be exposed. And so I think I would tell people to make sure that they don’t lose accountability to their constituents. So make sure that those constituents who are impacted, whether it’s because they’re teachers or school, families who are scared or they’re in hospitals, whatever it is, that they go and they meet with them and they don’t let them off the hook.

And that they call them and they email them and they show up outside of every space that they can to have their voices heard and that they join us in Albany. Because we are gonna be back. We’re not going anywhere. And so I encourage people to follow the immigrant defense project. They can follow us on Instagram and on social media. We also have a New York for All specific Instagram page. And we’re going to continue to, that’s NY4ALL, and we’re going to continue to keep people posted there.

BJ: I strongly encourage people to check it out, and if you have a few bucks, make sure to contribute as well.

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BJ: We have an upcoming event on Saturday, May 2nd, I want to tell you about from three to seven PM called Seeds of Freedom. It’s going to be at Downing Park Lake in Newburgh, New York. All you have to do is look out for those red balloons. And I’m here with one of the organizers of the events. Would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself?

Geleni Fontaine: Yes, thank you so much for having me, BJ. My name is Geleni Fontaine, and I’m with a group in Newburgh, New York called Semillas which means seeds. And we’re put together in order to create energy and support for migrant folks in our community and particularly people, families that are impacted by state violence. So we’re excited about having this free event in the park.

BJ: Tell me bit more about the organization for people who might not be familiar.

Geleni: Sure, we’re brand new. So we’re actually still in the process of creating a mission statement. But what matters to us that we’ve all decided on, that we’ve all discussed pretty thoroughly is that we want to be supportive of people who are directly impacted by the kind of violence that immigrants in this country are facing right now, the kind of terrorism really, particularly that’s impacting children and families.

So we want to create events and spaces and conversations in which people are able to not just find different ways of plugging in to experiences that are resisting that violence, but also doing different things to support each other and themselves. So we want to create spaces that are healing spaces. And that’s part of the reason for having this event in the park on

BJ: Was there a moment that triggered the creation of this group?

Geleni: I don’t know if there was a moment that did. A number of us are involved in all different kinds of organizations and groups throughout the area. I think that particularly as the crisis started happening in detention centers and as we started thinking about how a lot of the leadership of some of organizations, particularly mainstream ones, is among White folks and people who aren’t directly experiencing this kind of violence.

We wanted to create spaces to help move leadership up, from people who are most impacted. So I think that was the the kind of driving force behind it And and that’s something that we hope to to work on our what are our we’re actually as a group We’re not called semillas That’s the name of the event. Our group name is Caracoles which is snails. And for us, it’s a really evocative and wonderful image and metaphor because snails move slowly, snails create community. So there’s the idea of just kind of creating a pace in which everybody can move forward together. So that’s really what we’re about.

BJ: I really like that because we constantly try to tell people that fascism isn’t defeated in some big climactic battle. It takes thousands and thousands of these little steps that you never see and never even hear about that finally take it down. It looks like it’s coming down all at once. And snails are perfect metaphor for that.

Geleni: Yeah, absolutely. And coming from the earth. You know, really from the grass roots, from the ground up.

BJ: I know it’s early days, but if someone is listening to this and they’re interested and they wanna get involved, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Geleni: Well, I think one great way would be to come to the event if they’re able to. People who right now who are part of Caracoles are, know, most of us are in the mid Hudson Valley, but there are also a lot of us that have New York City roots. I think we have one member who’s in the Bronx, but yeah, but we’re creating different kinds of coalitions and relationships. So. We’re definitely open to including more people in that conversation.

BJ: Is there any significance to the red balloons?

Geleni Fontaine: I think the red balloon is just really to be visible so that folks can find us easily.

BJ: Tell us a bit about what’s happening? So Saturday, 3 to 7, Downing Park Lake in Newburgh. What can people expect to do? Like what’s being given away?

Geleni: Well, it’s gonna be a pretty mellow community space. There’s going to be community singing, different kinds of freedom songs, from various multicultural traditions in which people use singing together as resistance and community healing. So that’s gonna be a big part of it. We’ll also have a zine that’ll be offered for free that includes information about supporting different kinds of resistance against state violence, against migrant people, about building community power and healing. So that’ll be available.

There’s going to be a seed planting stations, which will be really great. And that’s very much in keeping with our message and with this happening the day after May Day. And it’s, the event is about seeds, what we can grow together.

So there will be a chance to actually grow something physical together as well. There’s also gonna be a children’s story time circle. There is a campaign called Read Them Home campaign that is in support of detained children in the Dilley Detention Center in Texas, and also detained children and families everywhere. So this is a campaign in which people come together and read children’s stories, in honor of these children and also promoting that kind of community space and those circles. So we’re having a family story time hour, that’ll be part of that Read Them Home campaign.

I’m also, an acupuncturist. I’m going to be offering community acupuncture in the space. And I think that there’s also gonna be some food and probably a lot of other things, because it’s been growing, as more people have offered to support in different ways. So, yeah, and the weather looks like it’s going to cooperate. So we’re excited about that.

BJ: Yes. I’m going to keep my fingers crossed because I know there was the event in Goshen and the weather was just terrible for that day.

Geleni: I’ll mention we do have a rain date of Sunday, the following day. But I think both days are supposed to be cloudy but not rainy. So at least during the time of the event. So hopefully it’ll all go well.

BJ: And it’s so for the rain day, would it be the same times from three to seven?

Geleni Fontaine: Yes.

BJ: And tell me just a bit more about the zine. Because I’ve noticed that this is, mean, this is something I remember from my twenties, back in the punk rock days of, you know, getting worried about music scenes, but I’ve noticed that a lot of the movements across the country are using zines as a way to, basically cut past, the corporate media. I would just love to hear a bit more about that.

Geleni: Yeah, a number of folks who are involved in caracoles are artists. And one person particularly, Chivita, is someone who has worked a lot through the use of zines, the medium of zines, in different social justice spaces. So that became a little bit of a nexus for us. So we thought that we would have this event as a way to distribute the zines and also to include a lot of information about social justice movements and different kinds of support within community. We want to offer space and information that centers community care. So that’s a big part of the zine, including the history of different kinds of care. There is a piece in the zine that is about the tradition of acupuncture that developed in New York City in the 70s that was very much led by people of color liberation movements. So, you know, there’s information about that and about so much more, including resources. And we just want to make sure that that’s something that we can offer to communities.

BJ: It’s such a great thing too, because it gives people something to take home. And that to me is incredibly powerful. You’re not just going to an event, you’re taking something home with you that you can continue your journey on.

Geleni: Yes, and it allows people to share it too, which is great.

BJ: Is there anything that I haven’t touched on about this event that you want people to know about?

Geleni: I like to highlight that it’s free so that everybody is welcome and that it’s also family-friendly.

BJ: Yes, I think that’s so important too, especially finding free stuff, what to do with your kids and your family on the weekend is always tough, finding something that, you know, I don’t want to say like going to the movies isn’t a positive thing, of course it is, but going to a community event with your kids, I think is something that could inspire them.

Geleni: Definitely. And you know, another thing I’ll add is that we’re trying as much as possible to make it a bilingual space according to our capacity so that everything will be offered in English and Spanish. So it’s a bilingual zine. Services will also be offered in both languages. There will be interpretation available as needed. We can’t provide access to other languages, unfortunately, but we wanted to to do what we could. So that’s something that matters a lot to us.

BJ: Absolutely. I mean, yeah, it almost goes without saying. Just the importance of making sure anything that we do as resistance work is accessible to as many people as possible. And that’s fantastic. That’s something that I hope other community groups listening or the volunteers listening keep in mind for their events as well.

Geleni: Yes. Yeah, definitely.

BJ: Is there anything about the group that you want people to know? how can they get involved? Can they find you online? Like what?

Geleni: We don’t have an online presence right now. We’re very new, but we’re committed to continuing and we’re going to have a conversation when this event is over about what comes next for us. So we should be reaching out soon. And in the meantime, people can look for us in Downing Park.

BJ: Seeds of Freedom, Saturday, May 2nd from 3 to 7 p.m. with the rain date of Sunday, May 3rd, 3 to 7 p.m. at Downing Park in Newburgh. Make sure you look for the red balloons.

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New articles on The Monroe Gazette are on hiatus until BJ finishes his book, “How to Protect Yourself From Fascists & Weirdos.” It will be released in late May or early June of this year. If you would like a free .pdf or .mp3 copy of the book when they become available, subscribe to the Stupid Sexy Privacy newsletter here.

Articles will resume on The Monroe Gazette in early May. Until then we’ll be running brand new episodes of the podcast.

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The following is the full transcript from this week’s podcast. The transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity where neded.

BJ Mendelson, Editor of The Monroe Gazette: Rory, thank you so much for joining us on The Monroe Gazette. we’ve had a couple of representatives from the Electronic Frontier Foundation on our sister podcast, Stupid Sexy Privacy. But because this is The Monroe Gazette podcast, I was hoping you could take a moment just to introduce yourself and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Rory Mir, Director of Open Access and Tech Community Engagement at the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Yeah, I’m happy to and thank you so much for having me on. I’m Rory Mir. I’m the Director of Open Access and Tech Community Engagement at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF has been fighting for over 30 years now. I wasn’t there the whole time, but over 30 years defending our civil liberties online. Basically bringing digital rights into a digital world. So a nonprofit law firm constantly defending innovation, privacy, and I’m particularly interested in defending consumers from bad tech practices from tech companies.

BJ Mendelson: The reason why we’re having this discussion on the Monroe Gazette as opposed to Stupid Sexy Privacy is because right now there is a provision in the New York state budget that the Electronic Frontier Foundation caught concerning 3D printers. Could you walk us through that?

Rory Mir: Folks that are familiar with the New York budget process know a lot of things get wrapped up into the budget And as usual it gets delayed quite a bit. So we’re still pushing back on it right now. There’s a couple of provision impacting 3d printers which folks are familiar with 2d printers, but 3d printers for folks that aren’t familiar are kind of like hot glue guns that you tell a computer to control and that slowly builds up a shape in three dimensions. Often you see this being used by artists, making cool statues or cosplay costumes. It’s also really common in more commercial settings where people are making prototypes or researchers testing a new shape for things. So it’s really this cool technology that lets you fabricate things without going through big manufacturers and kind of iterate quickly and build up new creative ideas. So we’re fans of this open innovation that it brings to folks on the grassroots level.

And what this provision and the budget does is threatens that basically. It curtails a lot of that expressive freedom by mandating a software that we think is dangerous, a print blocking mandate that is yeah so out of fear of ghost guns and people making firearms and firearm components with these machines basically New York State in this proposed budget would have a database of forbidden files and mandate — without any details I need to emphasize — a way for all of these 3D printers to not be able to print shapes that could be used in that context, which I think there’s a lot of good intention coming into this.

People are concerned about gun violence and unlicensed firearms. However, when you speak to people who actually understand how these machines work and just the nature of making a 3D shape, it is not something that is possible. There are many ways that any algorithm trying to detect shapes can be undermined quite easily.

So we’re concerned that while the people that are being targeted, the people who are trying to make firearms and similar components with these machines will be able to follow a quick tutorial to get around those blocks, the many, many other creators, researchers, innovators, that use and rely on these machines are going to be stuck with this technology that the only real way to do it is to have it be surveilling users and there’s no safeguards in those in the provisions for that.

So we’re really worried about the impact that it’ll have on the lawful use of these machines and really just don’t want it to be rushed through this budget process without any safeguards or oversight for those regular lawful users.

BJ: So let me break that down a little bit. Because I think the concern from the ghost guns came from the murder of the United Health Care CEO and the claims that Luigi Mangione may have used a 3D printed gun.

But my understanding is it’s actually really difficult to make a functioning gun from a 3D printer. Is that right?

Rory: Yeah, it requires a level of understanding the craft of it. Technically, you don’t even need a 3D printer. Homemade DIY guns have existed long before 3D printers because it is ultimately a simple machine that once you know how to machine it, you can do it. So 3D printers... You can make a cheap error prone one that might blow up in your hand if you don’t already have that existing knowledge of how firearms work and how to properly put one together. So while it is possible for someone to make one with a 3D printer, there is a level of know-how that has to go into it as well.

BJ: Right, and I have to imagine, and this is all getting into hypothetical territory, but I have to imagine that if someone is particularly motivated to print a 3D weapon, that nothing is really going to stop them from doing it.

Rory: Yeah, I mean, that gets into this mandated software on these machines. One of the things is that it is easy enough to alter it because it’s unlike something tightly regulated and standard like currency. People will point to you’re not able to print a dollar bill, but that is a very specific reference with very specific design standards. So being able to detect whether it looks like that is quite simple.

With a firearm, you’re talking about a function. So any shape that can or can potentially serve that same function falls into that definition. And that gets even further complicated by the fact that with 3D printing, the machine only sees what you’re printing in the moment. So if you print something that has a lot of extra adornments, you can maybe shave it down to a core component. And likewise, if you... kind of print a bunch of pieces of a firearm and then later fuse them together, you can also make one that way.

So the machine isn’t gonna see your intention, right? It’s only gonna be able to look at the file and that’s what makes it so easy to game if you are determined to make these firearms.

BJ: Right, and so my concern here is the way that this software is described, sounds like, and just how you’ve explained it, it looks like it’s not specifically targeted at guns, it’s targeted at gun-like shapes, is that right?

Rory: Yeah, so we’re seeing a few of these in different states that have slightly different language. The New York one is really less detailed than ones we’ve seen in Washington and California. It’ll be decided by a working group without peer review, which is concerning to us. So it could be loaded with people with financial interests on how this works.

The thing that is shared across these bills is often the receiver of the firearm, which is the part that needs a serial number when you buy or alterations, which is even more abstract of simple shapes that can turn a handgun into a machine gun, you can make with literally a clothes hanger, or you can 3D print a shape that looks like that. And that is the same sort of abstract shape that is being implicated in these bills.

BJ: You were kind enough to send me a bunch of material, which I read through. And I found that I was kind of lost as to what exactly the software does, who exactly would enforce the penalties and then the penalties themselves seemed kind of outrageous. Could you explain those to us?

Rory: So in New York, a lot of it is really focused on the sellers. So a lot of the penalties will come to a seller who sells one of these machines that doesn’t have this mandated software on it. So that one of the things that really strikes me about that is that that extends to the second hand market that someone who has a printer today, if this passes in a few years might want to sell it to recoup some of those costs, or maybe get a new one. And then they would be implicated in these same penalties, which really range, but include potentially financial penalties or liability for anything that is done with the machine that is sold.

BJ: I was kind of shocked at this suggestion that people would have to buy, [the 3D printers face to face.]

So if you lived in our region and you wanted a 3D printer because you saw what was being done at SUNY New Paltz, or you are interested in resistance work where you want to print out whistles for detecting ice, that you would have to go and meet someone in person to purchase a 3D printer. Is that right?

Rory: Yeah. It’s absurd. I feel that not only for the purchase, but for the delivery of the device. And there’s no exception to commercial folks. So this bill includes 3D printers as well as something called CNC machines, which are similar to 3D printers, but kind of do the opposite. They carve a shape out of metal or wood instead of adding plastic together. And those are very expensive. For machines that are typically used by huge industries, aerospace, automotive, medical, manufacturing, these huge commercial industries would also have this silly face-to-face requirement. But then the other thing I think of … I lived all over New York state in my life, including quite a bit of time in the Finger Lake region. And frankly, you having to drive to one of the few stores that has this, which, you know, I don’t know that I can only name a handful off the top of my head that even sell 3D printers.

You have to drive there to buy it instead of ordering it online. And that has all the inherent limitations of having to be buying in person of whatever’s in stock. Whatever brands has a deal with that reatalor So there’s a lot of practical headaches for the people who want to get into and would benefit most, I think, from these printers, people who want to repair things without having to take it to the nearest shop or have things sent over from the other side of the world.

BJ: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the finger legs. I was just thinking of like a student at Alfred State having to drive a few hours to go and meet some random person to buy a 3D printer. It sounds like you’re buying drugs. That’s the thing that struck me was, you know, I feel like the marijuana dispensaries right now, I could just walk into one as long as I show my driver’s license. And I don’t like I don’t have this weird requirement that I can only buy it in person, face to face.

So, who benefits from all this? This really seems to me like it’s more the tech companies are pushing this than people who are actually concerned about gun violence.

Rory: Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear that the winners from this aren’t the gun safety advocates, but are the major makers of these printers and retailers that sell these printers that it would become far more difficult and burdensome for someone to break into the market once you have this sort of regime set up where you have to not only build this technology upfront in order to, again, this like magic bean technology of being able to prevent a firearm from being printed, but then the ongoing costs of keeping that updated, meeting the requirements and it creates this huge headache that would only really benefit from a handful of the biggest makers of these devices.

BJ: And did you see that in the … I saw the California legislation that had been proposed and the Colorado legislation that had been proposed. Do you find that it’s the same group of people that sort of pushing this?

Rory: I think there’s a lot of similarities on the gun safety side of it, which again, I think is well intentioned and I value gun safety there. But then I think a lot of the discussion on the industry side of it, of, it has been pretty secretive. We’ve met with one or two major manufacturers between these 3D printers, but they never seem to mention who they’re meeting with. So, you know, one can draw their own conclusions from that. But I think it is remarkable that the big printers have been so quiet on this, something that would impact their customers so negatively. [Emphasis added.]

BJ: Right. You had a great term. I know what it means because we’ve interviewed Cory Doctorow So we’ve talked about enshitification quite a bit. But you used, I saw the term used by the EFF of an “enshitification lock,” which is essentially what this legislation is trying to do. And I was hoping you could explain that to people who might not be familiar.

Rory: So I’ll actually back it up a little bit to talk about digital rights management software, which folks might not be familiar with. And there’s a pretty good analogy for this print blocking technology where … Basically, it is now a federal crime and has been since the DMCA passed to alter any code that exists to prevent copyright infringement. And this is what makes it difficult to move an e-book from one device to another. And people are, famously people know about it, restricting people’s ability to repair tractors like John Deere tractors.

And a lot of that comes from having this code that has this special permission that makes it difficult for users to navigate around. So DRM gives manufacturers the special leverage over customers so that we can see it manifest in 2D printers with HP. Making it difficult to get ink for your printer. There is a DRM protection that you can only use the appropriate ink and that makes it more expensive to use the ink. And a lot of that is because of this special code that you’re not able to circumnavigate and just get the cheap ink that would be otherwise available.

So by building this in and making it a mandate and tying it to the legal system, you’re creating not only a huge incentive but a legal protection for these anti-competitive practices on the part of the tech company making it.

BJ: Yeah, and I think it’s I find it troubling that we’re not talking about doing away with that DRM in the budget, but we are talking about adding like additional DRM to these.

Rory: Exactly. And yeah, again, with this one, it really creates this incentive of surveillance, right, because they are asking for this big abstract type of blocking that you can’t really do with the type of firmware that’s on these machines.

And it would be difficult to do with the slicing software, which is the software you use to use the printer on your own laptop. So it’s really encouraging it all going to an AI analysis in a cloud somewhere, which means everything someone prints being sent and observable to these folks. Privacy violation. Chills speech.

And it has a lot of practical considerations, particularly with commercial buyers with intellectual property theft. Those other extra risks that are being introduced by this.

BJ: Was the Colorado law thrown out over free speech. Was that a successful lawsuit?

Rory: So the Colorado law, right as it was reaching the finish line, removed a few provisions that were making it criminal to share the files for these gun components. And it was removed at the last minute by the governor due to First Amendment concerns. And I haven’t given as much attention to it, but that is also one of the provisions in this New York budget of making it a crime to, in certain circumstances, to share or to possess these files. So we have similar First Amendment concerns about what’s in the New York provision. That as nice as it’s, again, it comes from this sort of well-intentioned place, what if we can just mandate that things were nice, without the real practical considerations that criminalizing information doesn’t work.

Someone who’s intent on getting these files or sharing these files are gonna find ways to do so, which we see with things like copyright infringement and piracy, that it’s not really a barrier, it’s just an extra charge to throw at someone when they’re already doing something that’s illegal. And that’s something I haven’t emphasized yet, but it is already illegal in New York to produce or sell one of these 3D printed firearms. So we’re just adding additional laws that hurt consumers for something that’s already illegal. [Emphasis added.]

BJ: You beat me to it. was gonna say, isn’t it already illegal to like, make and possess these weapons?

Rory: Yeah, as of I believe 2022, yeah, to, I believe it was passed in 2019. But yeah, to produce these firearms, these unlicensed firearms is already a major crime to produce or sell.

BJ: It reminds me a lot of like the digital ID, digital driver’s license push, where I understand where some of it comes from, where you, okay, you don’t want kids to access horrible content. I completely get that. But in the process of, you know, quote unquote, protecting the children, you’re actually creating this huge digital database of everyone’s driver’s license and everyone’s face and all of the data that comes with it.

And do you really want to be doing that right now when you have an authoritarian regime running the federal government? And so this to me, seems like sort of the same deal, right? There is a good idea. I’m adamantly against gun violence. The problem with guns is guns. I would get rid of all of them if I could. But to me, it seems like we’re not really solving the problem here. We’re just using the problem as an excuse to enrich certain companies and at the same time create yet another database, right, of stuff that you don’t necessarily, you might not, you might be listening to this thinking I have nothing to hide, but you might be, you live in a very fluid situation.

For example, if you were to move to a red state and abortion is illegal, right, then if you print out material about abortion, you are committing a crime according to that state. So even if you, quote, have nothing to hide at the moment, laws like this have a tendency of coming back and biting you in the ass later.

Rory: Yeah, yeah, it’s ultimately about defending grassroots innovation and user rights. And yeah, today it is something that feels very sympathetic and can only grow from there once this infrastructure is in place, right? Right now it’s about the safety of building something that is more inherently dangerous, but one could make a similar argument about the safety of printing your own repair parts, that do you really want people repairing their bicycles with a 3D printed component if, you know, maybe it would break and not be printed correctly? And then I think the natural next step is, of course, copyright. I’m sure many companies would like a way to prevent people from printing their own cheap alternatives to either commercial sold repair parts or even if you think about toys and things that a lot of people make 3D printers with, know, your toy Pokemon figurines might be blocked just because Nintendo doesn’t want people buying or building their own instead of buying from them. So I think there’s a core kind of creativity we’re defending here, even if it starts with something that is harder to defend, right.

BJ: It’s one of those things where it’s, again, it’s all presented under, all of this stuff is always presented under the best of intentions. But once you start to look underneath, you start to realize, oh, OK, this is a little bit more than what you’re saying it is. Let me ask you in the time that we have left, what, well, I guess it’s a two-parter, which is what can or what is the EFF considering on this front? And what can people do that are listening to us, what can they do to get this out of the budget?

Rory: Yeah, I think right now it’s such an important time to reach out to representatives since we’re in this prolonged budget. Going to Eff.org/3dprintNY is our action page that lets you easily message your assembly member and state senator with a customizable message so you can include your own thoughts and we’d encourage you to.

And I think really it’s we’re in a state of it’ll pass any day now so taking that action now is really urgent. I think beyond that it’s not going to be the last 3D printing legislation we see other bills introduced that would require a criminal background check in order to buy a 3D printer.

You know, and again, this is a fringe use of 3D printers. Right. And it’s also a fringe way to make a ghost gun, like overwhelming ghost guns are made from DIY kits that are mass manufactured. [Emphasis added.]

BJ: Right, it’s not common at all. I think that’s something we should stress is that like the…

Rory: So it’s a fringe from both angles. This is, we’re talking about a very small subset of people and to subject everyone to already face-to-face sales, but potentially as well, these background checks is pretty ridiculous and will just disempower local communities and local makers.

So I think keeping an eye out for these other bills as they come up. But right now, we’re in a big mobilization push for this budget. Since, again, we’re on borrowed time.

BJ: Rory, thank you so much. Where can we find you? I mean, you mentioned the Action page. How else can we get involved and support the EFF?

Rory: Yeah, so if folks want to support EFF’s work, they can go to EFF.org/join and become a supporting member. If you want to follow me, I’m on a little site called Mastodon, false mirror at Masto.nyc. But yeah, I think following our work on the main site at EFF.org is probably the best way to keep in the loop.

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Below is a transcript from today’s episode of the podcast. It has been edited for brevity and clarity. Above is a flyer for tomorrow’s event. We hope you can be there.

The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free; and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Southern Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content, podcast audio, our behind the scenes Facebook group, and the ability to comment on posts just like this one.

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BJ Mendelson, The Monroe Gazette: Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of The Monroe Gazette podcast. I want to let you know that on Saturday, April 25th, which will be tomorrow for most of you that listen to this, there’s going a national day of action stop other ICE warehouse detention centers. As some of you know, we for now have blocked 29 Elizabeth Drive here in the village of Chester from becoming a ICE detention facility. But you know, the fight goes on across the country.

Tomorrow (Saturday) From 12 to 1.30 p.m. at the Orange County Government Center at 255 Main Street in Goshen, New York. There’s going to be a National Day of Action that’s organized by Indivisible Goshen, Rural Migrant Ministries, and Gateway House among numerous others. So we really hope to see you.

As a lot of you know, even though we did block the ICE Detention Center from opening up in Chester; over in Orange County Jail in Goshen, they still have an entire wing that is dedicated to housing ICE detainees.

So. ICE is not completely out of our community. All that said, I’m joined today by a representative of Public Citizen, which is one of the organizations that put this coalition together.

Omar, I’m hoping you might take a moment just to introduce yourself and tell us what you do at Public Citizen.

Omar Angel Perez, Rule of Law Coordinator at Public Citizen: Hi everyone, my name is Omar Angel Perez and I am the rule of law coordinator for Public Citizen and in this role I work with different grassroots and community organizations across the country.

We’re focused on protecting democracy and the rule of law. And in this case, working with different partners, and primarily the Detention Watch Network organizing this day of action across the country.

BJ: And can you tell us real quick, I know some of our older listeners might be familiar with Public Citizen from the days of Ralph Nader, but could you just tell us some of the other things that Public Citizen does that they might not be aware of?

Omar: Yeah, so Public Citizen is an organization that has been around for 50 years now and its primary focus is the protection of democracy regardless who is in power and the White House and the Congress.

In the last two, three administrations, we’re just keeping an eye on how the administrations have been conducting themselves in this case since the first Trump administration, Public Citizen joined other organizations on different occasions, beginning with a focus on preserving democracy in the country and protecting communities who have been under attack.

BJ: And just full disclosure for people listening, I am a paid member of Public Citizen. I get the newspaper. I recommend that everyone join. Omar, can you tell us a little bit about what is happening this weekend?

Omar: Yeah, so as we all know, because it’s been in the media a lot, the Trump administration has been expanding their capacity to target immigrant communities, regardless of their status.

And we witnessed the deployment of national guard and ICE agents in different parts of the country, different cities taken over. I’m based in Washington, D.C. I live in Washington, D.C. I have two kids who go to elementary school here in the district. And We witnessed how ICE agents were literally taking over our streets, targeting our neighbors, arresting people. Arresting teachers, caregivers outside our schools. And that’s one way how this administration has been targeting our communities and neighborhoods.

The other way they’ve been doing is expending their capacity by Republicans in Congress allocating more money to fund DHS and ICE. And expanding also the detention centers by buying warehouses across the country. We know because there’s a lot of reports out there about the horrible conditions.

People are being in this detention center, some people calling them actually concentration camps because the conditions they are on there.

BJ: Yes.

Omar: Right like there are in Daly, Texas outside of San Antonio, there are incarcerated minors, minors who’ve been in, you know, with no way to be in contact with the loved ones, with their attorneys, like nobody knows what’s happening to them.

We know stories of pregnant women with no access to medical care in these detention centers. There is a report that’s coming out about forced labor. People in detention, migrants have been forced to work through this program that ICE has in place and all that they get paid is like one dollar per day. And so there is these horrible conditions that this administration are …

BJ: Wow.

Omar: Keeping our people under. And now they want to increase their capacity to continue detaining people, churning people, and they want to expand their capacity by buying these warehouses, and with a capacity of detaining between 1,500 to 10,000 people. And these warehouses have no conditions to, like … They are warehouses.

They’re not to, you know, house people. They’re there to store stuff, but not people. So we’re missing what’s happening right now. We just cannot imagine what will be the conditions these people are going to be held if they are allowed to, if they are able to expand their capacity by buying these warehouses and expanding these detention centers.

So Public Citizen, the Disappear America campaign, Detention Watch Network and Indivisible, Move On are the core partners of this day of action that is started by a group of folks coming together and thinking, okay, what we can do in this moment to bring attention what is happening and also responding to the outcry of the community in different parts of the country? Pushing back this intention of expanding ICE capacity of detaining people. So we started basically with the idea of saying, okay, let’s organize the day of action. And then it went from that idea to like massively have a response from the communities across the country.

And what we started, we’re thinking about, we’re going to have like one action, probably in DC, expanding out to almost 200 actions across the country.

If you go to the mobilize page, you will see the map. And it’s, we’re talking about, you know, from Texas to Alaska, from Washington state to New Mexico, like it’s all over because people are tired of this situation and people are, speaking out after the horrible condition we witnessed people are in these detention centers.

BJ: Absolutely. And I think it’s important to stress to people that even when the media moves away, they being ICE and DHS and the other federal agencies are still snatching people. They’re still snatching people in Chicago. What they did was they moved more towards like the outer rim of the city. I have a lot of friends in Los Angeles and we still are hearing reports every day of strong ICE activity.

So even if the cameras are gone, it’s important that these events happen because I think people need to realize that it hasn’t stopped. ICE hasn’t gone anywhere. Even if you don’t hear about it in the news so much, they are still very active out there.

Omar: Yeah, they are very, very, very active. As you say, just yesterday I was with a driver, happened to be this woman from El Salvador. And she was telling me how she has to like work multiple jobs now because her husband was detained just like a few days ago while he was on his way to work. And even when he was, he has a case, a legal case, and he was going through the process of the case, he was a team with another group of coworkers, and now he is being deported to Guatemala, a country that he left when he was a minor. He’s been in the country for more than 20 years, and what we’re seeing is precisely that, right? Like, they don’t care who you are.

If you look at it as an immigrant, you are a target. Regardless what your status, regardless you have a criminal history or background, whatever it is.

And I just want to say here, right, a parenthesis, people have this narrative about like the good and bad immigrant, who is deserving, who has a criminal record and all that. We need to remind ourselves since the Trump administration, they criminalize being an immigrant. They criminalize being in this country. Like, regardless the way how you came in, regardless how one was brought in when you were a kid. This dehumanization of immigrants by criminalizing everybody, right? And, and it’s very punitive. By doing that, they are violating basically all laws or processes or proceedings. They themselves don’t respect the laws that they have in place by the way they are acting.

BJ: A number of studies have come out since the first Trump administration that demonstrates if you are here as an immigrant, you’re more likely to contribute to your community. You’re more likely to pay your taxes. You’re less likely to commit crime than an American citizen. It’s sort of like the we’ve allowed the the corporate media and the Trump administration to kind of tell people the opposite is true.

Omar: Absolutely, yeah. we see also, I there are polls coming out almost every day that shows where the American people stand on this, right? Like, they are not only against the incarceration of immigrants, they are not only not happy about how this administration is handling the immigration, the immigrant issue, but they actually now are pushing against ICE. Like the polls are showing that more than half of the population are for the dismantling of ICE as an agency because the way, the violent way they are targeting our communities. And we witness, It’s not now, it’s not only, they are not only targeting immigrants, right? What we witness in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, they are targeting non-immigrants as well. So they’re targeting all Americans who are speaking out and pushing back against this administration.

BJ: Yeah, and I think people need to know that the Supreme Court said, they call it the Kavanaugh stop, where if you’re not white, then you can be pulled over by law enforcement for suspicion of being here, quote unquote, illegally. So it’s something that poses a real risk. I think about Marimar Martinez, who was pulled over. They shot at her. They didn’t kill her, but they then tried to detain her after she was shot. They like absolutely were harassing this poor woman. And she’s here as a citizen and that did not stop them from hounding her.

So yeah, you’re absolutely right to point out that it’s very easy to think, well, you know, they’re just going after quote unquote the bad ones, right, or the criminals, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Omar: Absolutely, you’re right. you know, just earlier today, I was in communication with some partners a lot of the work that Public Citizen does is through the Not Above the Law Coalition, we work with also veterans groups, organizations, veterans …

Something that I come across to recently is the story, a couple of stories of spouses of military members who’s being detained at the moment where the military members were reporting to be deployed to Iran.

And there is this story of this guy who reported to his base with his wife and his wife. She in the country legally, but she is a resident and she’s like, you know, she’s waiting for her case. Well, guess what? While he was waiting, they were waiting, the ICE agent show up and detain her and now she’s in a detention and she’s going to be deported.

So you think like, what’s the logic here? Right? Like they are, we’re talking about people who are serving their country, but this government is not even respecting their basic human rights and they’re targeting their spouses and relatives. So that’s immoral. I don’t even have words of how to describe this.

BJ: Absolutely. Yeah, it’s criminal. It’s absolutely criminal.

I think people need to understand that, you know, because the thing, we’re kind of a purplish area, right? So when we do events like the one on Saturday at 12 p.m. at the Orange County Government Center at 255 Main Street, sometimes we’ll hear people say, well, you’ve got to do it the right way.

But what they don’t understand is the right way is broken. Like it was intentionally broken. The apps don’t work. We’ve completely understaffed our federal court that handles immigration cases. So people could be waiting forever just to get a hearing. And in that time ICE comes and grabs them.

Let me just switch gears just a little bit. So here in Chester, we were able to, for now, stop ICE from acquiring a warehouse. They were dead set on it. There was a bipartisan, pretty ferocious backlash to it and ICE kind of backed away. But we still have this specter of, ICE could come back at any time because ICE lies.

Pictured Above: Readers asked us for an update on the Chester Concentration camp. Above you’ll see ICE’s response to The Monroe Gazette on April 21st, 2026.

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BJ: And I was hoping you might be able to just touch on that a little bit, that this agency that is supposed to be the one handling it and allegedly protecting us is consistently lying to the point where you have a community like ours where we think ICE is gone, you we think that they’re not going to grab that warehouse, but it’s just constantly hanging over us that they can come back at any time.

Omar: Yeah, that is true. If you pay attention, we pay attention, ICE became basically Trump’s private army. And they are just doing whatever he’s doing. If he’s saying that they need to, well, actually, it was [Stephen] Miller who said a quota of the things for today.

BJ: Yes.

Omar: So they need to fill that quota. They’re gonna go and do whatever they gotta do in order to meet that quota, but also they need a space where to send those people. And when you think about the polling, the number of deportations that are aiming towards, which I think the latest was like a million per year, they need to work with the countries they are sending, they’re reporting those people to.

And that takes a lot of work and a lot of time. So it’s not something like easy that they were going to put people on the next plane, next flight, and then they get rid of them. That’s why they need spaces to incarcerate them. And not only that, right? They are a handful of private companies like GEO Group and others who are making profits out of the suffering of people on those detention centers.

And they are signing like this huge multi-billion contracts with the government to run those spaces, those detention centers. And they’re doing it to us. So because all these reasons, they are gonna come back over and over because that is what they are told to do and that’s what they want to do, right?

So for our communities, we need to continue being paying attention. We need to continue being in relationship with local elected officials. We need to continue being on those meetings and those spaces, continue speaking out, lifting our voices because they are going to try to find ways to go around us in order to buy those warehouses, open those detention centers, and those goes in detriment of our own local communities, right? Like the resources that we have, they’re gonna use it to ruin [the environment], and to run those detention centers. So we need to be paying attention to that constantly.

BJ: What more can we do as people listening to us? Aside from becoming a paid member like I am, of Public Citizen, what are things that people can do to help kind of bang the drum on this?

Omar: Yeah, so I think there are a lot of things that we can do, right? Locally, one is talk to your neighbors. You have an immigrant neighbor, check in on them. Just go say hello, ask how they are doing, what they need. If it is like any local mutual aid group, get connected. Go to talk to them, ask how you can help.

There is a lot of need for now. There is a lot of people who are suffering in this country in this moment and they need your help. If you are a member of a church, even if you are not a member of a church, you can go to the local church and ask them if they are doing anything. If they don’t, you should talk to your pastor and say, hey, pastor, we need to do this. This is the moral call. And continue organizing, continue participating in these kind of actions and bring your friends. Bringing your own networks, build your networks. Right now the immigrants are the scapegoat. The next we know are citizens and it’s already happening. Something that I wanna put on people’s minds, people who are listening to us in this moment is if you are a citizen, don’t be sure that you are protected.

Look around, just look around and what’s happening in this country. Because the next thing that I’m gonna wanna get rid of is your citizenship.

BJ: Yeah, and you know, we already have three citizens that were killed. You know, like, factually we can, two of which was on camera. One was not, and then there’s also the Marimar Martinez shooting. So you have three that we know for sure that were killed and one that was shot. [Editor’s Note: Rene Good, Alex Pretti, and Ruben Ray Martinez were killed by ICE.]

And that’s just what we know about. And that’s not even talking about, you know, I know that one of the deaths recently in these concentration camps, which is what I prefer to call them, was recently ruled a homicide.

And the number of deaths reported by ICE since their founding. It hasn’t been higher than it is right now. And I always try to tell people, you know, what do you think they’re going to do with these warehouses after they’ve deported everybody? You know, like they’re going to, they’re not going to turn around and say mission accomplished. They’re probably going to go and start rounding up other people, myself included, as a journalist.

Omar: Yeah, totally. that’s something that we have witnessed in other parts of the country, You look at history, history tells us a lot. And you’re right. They will continue profiting out of those spaces, out of those detention centers. So who are the next one after the immigrants? Just imagine a day without immigrants in this country. Who are going to be those ones who they’re going to put in those detention centers?

BJ: Yes. Is there anything on this topic that I should have asked you or could have asked you and didn’t that you’d like to touch on?

Omar: No, I just appreciate you. I appreciate the work that you do. And I appreciate everybody who’s taken to the streets this Saturday. We need you. Your community needs you. Your country needs you. this is the way how we are supposed to, to act and react in this moment. So thank you.

BJ: Absolutely, and thank you for all you’re doing. And just a reminder for people listening, April 25th, that’s Saturday, 12 to 1.30 at the Orange County Government Center, 255 Main Street is going to be our location for the National Day of Action. Omar, thank you so much.

Omar: Thank you.

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Below is the transcript from today’s podcast episode. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

***

BJ Mendelson: Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Monroe Gazette podcast with your host, BJ Mendelson.

We interviewed State Senator Andrew Gounardes today about the New York for All Act. There’s a lot of discussion going on about this bill, particularly in the town of Monroe, as you might have seen if you watch the two recent town board meetings.

(Below, at 48:49 from this week’s meeting, you can see the bill being discussed by residents, and then at 1:03:18 you can hear the Town Board’s response as to why they are not moving forward with it.)

BJ: We’ve been trying to get them [The Town of Monroe] to pass a ceremonial — it’s purely ceremonial, it’s not binding in any way, shape, or form — resolution that would encourage State Senator Skoufis and assembly members Eachus and Brabenec who represent Monroe, to endorse and support the New York for All Act. This is one of the things that Skoufis says he supports, but Skoufis says he supports lots of stuff.

(Skoufis is not a co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate. Eachus, Kay, and Brabenec are not co-sponsors in the Assembly.)

Like with any any of these politicians these days, you have to look at what they do and not what they say. So the jury is still out on that one. However, we did speak with Senator Gournardis. I do want to bring the interview to you. I think we had a great discussion. It’s a little brief.

But it will bring you up to speed on the New York for All Act. Before we get to it, I want to let you know that this Saturday, April 25th is not only my birthday, but it is also another hands-off Hudson Valley stand-up event.

So we hope to see you on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the corner of Lake Street and 17M in the town of Monroe.

If you’re concerned about the corporate Democrats dragging their feet on passing New York for All, be there.

If you’re concerned about why Congressman Pat Ryan does not support Medicare for All, be there.

And if you have concerns about the village of Monroe, and there’s a lot to be concerned about with the new Melchiorrie-Mancuso axis, because clearly it looks like former mayor Mancuso is in charge and Alex Melchiorre is just there as a plant for the real estate developers …

If you’re concerned about that, we also would like to see you Saturday, 1 p.m. at the corner of 17M and Lake Street in the village of Monroe.

All that being said, let’s get to today’s interview.

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Our Interview With State Senator Andrew Gounardes

BJ Mendelson, The Monroe Gazette : Would you like to take a moment just to introduce yourself to people who might not be familiar?

State Senator Gounardes: I’m State Senator Andrew Gounardes from Brooklyn, New York.

BJ: And I know that you, we’ve talked before about New York For All, but for people that are just coming into this midstream, could you briefly explain to us what this bill does?

State Senator Gounardes: Absolutely. So, New York for All is a piece of legislation that I sponsor that would prohibit any local or state government agency or any local or state law enforcement agency from colluding and conspiring with ICE for the purposes of immigration enforcement unless there is a signed judicial warrant by a federal judge. And why this is so important is because we’ve seen all across the state an increase in the circumstances and instances where local governments, particularly local law enforcement, are working hand in hand with ICE or CBP, which is Customs and Border Patrol, along many of our northern border communities. And they’re working hand in hand with them to carry out immigration enforcement. And that looks like a lot of different things. It could be that local law enforcement are arresting people on false pretenses, and then turning them over to ICE. It could be that local law enforcement is tipping ICE off to where undocumented immigrants might be, or sharing information about undocumented immigrants, and then kind of facilitating this dragnet of a draconian immigration policy that we’re seeing play out all across the country.

And why this is so important to stop is because A, we just fundamentally believe that New York State resources and New York State personnel and our tax dollars should not be used to facilitate and contribute to this terrible immigration crackdown that is literally tearing families apart, especially because ICE is now one of the most well-funded law enforcement entities in the country. I mean, they have a $75 billion budget. Why do they need our help?

And secondly, and this actually might be more important, it actually doesn’t help increase public safety when you let local governments or local law enforcement work hand in hand with ICE, because all that does is push people into the shadows and it tells them that they should not call local police for help, that they should not trust that when they call 911 for assistance, that they’re actually gonna be taken care of, that they should not go to a local public hospital when they need emergency care. And what could be more destabilizing to the safety of not only an individual, but to a whole community when you can no longer trust your local government? And that’s what we see happening play out all across the state, which is why New York for All is so critically important.

BJ: Absolutely. And just so you can help me clarify a couple of things that popped up in Orange County.

Recently, there was a protest about the agreement with Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus to house ICE detainees at OCJ, Orange County Jail.

The county executive, when asked about the protest, said that legislation in Albany, such as New York for All, would end that agreement. Is that right? Is that how that works?

State Senator Gounardes: So it would not be the New York for All bill, it would actually be the Dignity Not Detention bill, but the same premise applies. So Dignity Not Detention basically says that local governments cannot enter into contracts with ICE to use their jail facilities for immigration detention. So broadly speaking, he [Neuhaus] is correct. He got the name of the bill wrong, but he’s correct. We’re trying to both of these practices.

BJ: In the town of Monroe, we’ve been trying to get them to pass a purely ceremonial resolution in support of New York for All. And one of the reasons they gave against it was that Hochul apparently has like this watered down version. So I’m just hoping you can clarify what the difference is between the actual New York for All and this watered down weak version that Kathy Hochul is pushing.

State Senator Gounardes: Well, the governor proposed several weeks ago a measure called Local Cops Local Crimes Act, which would basically ban any formal agreement between the local government and ICE.

These are known as 287-G agreements. Now, these types of agreements are where local entities enter into a formal partnership, it’s like a signed contract, about what they will or will not assist ICE with. And there’s different ways that this could take. There could be agreements to house immigrants in local detention facilities.

It can be agreements to share certain types of information. It can be agreements to deputize your local law enforcement to act as ICE agents side by side with ICE, as we’re seeing in Nassau County. So the governor’s proposal is to ban those. And that’s good, and that’s important. And New York For All would also ban those. But we’ve seen so much collusion that is not formalized in a contract, like a 287-G agreement all across the state.

Earlier this year, everyone has made national news, the Rohingya refugee in Buffalo, Nurul Alam who had a legal status to be here, he was a refugee with legal status, was arrested by the Erie County Sheriff on false charges, was held for nearly a year, and then was just simply turned over to Customs and Border Patrol. For whatever they were going to do with him and then five days later he showed up dead on the side of the road. The governor’s proposal would not address those circumstances.

In Port Chester, West Chester County earlier this year, there was a young man driving to church and he was pulled over by the police for having tinted windows. Now, tinted windows, you if you have them, you get a ticket, you get a desk appearance ticket, you gotta show up.

Just like if had a broken tail, you gotta show up, you gotta say, well, I fixed the window, I fixed the tail light, whatever. He was not given a desk appearance ticket. He was brought into the local precinct, he was detained, and then he was transferred to ICE for immigration detention. And last we heard he was in Louisiana trying to fight off his deportation.

That’s the type of collusion that New York for all would prevent that the governor’s proposal would not put a stop to. And then just last week, the governor made another amendment to her proposal and she said, we would not allow local law enforcement to coordinate with ICE unless they had probable cause that an immigrant may have committed a crime.

Now, that to me, and I think to many people, is highly problematic because that is such a subjective standard. And, you know, just last week in Brooklyn in a different circumstance, local police officers went into a bodega to arrest someone that they thought they had probable cause to believe was a drug dealer, they beat the living tar out of him, and they had the wrong guy.

And we know that this story plays out time and time and time time time time again, right? I mean, local police make mistakes. That’s, you know, everyone’s human. But now we’re saying that if local police believe that an immigrant or frankly someone who looks like an immigrant may have committed a crime, we’re just gonna tell ICE.

Without zero protections, without zero due process, without anyone being charged, without anyone being convicted, without any proof whatsoever, that’s highly problematic. And so we’re still trying to hold the line and push to ban all types of collusion because we know that that actually is going to be the thing that keeps people safe and that keeps communities stabilized.

BJ: Absolutely. And it makes me nervous too, because the city of Newburgh just has an awful track record in terms of how it works with the residents of its city and its transparency.

And the Orange County Sheriff also actively stymies FOIL requests concerning ICE and detainees. So when you talk about leaving it to these local police forces to make these decisions, that’s sort of just sounds scary. [At the time of this writing, Orange County Attorney Rick Golden is attempting to hold up a FOIL request placed by The Monroe Gazette concerning Orange County’s communications with ICE involving Orange County Jail. The Monroe Gazette will be submitted a FOIL appeal shortly.]

Why wasn’t this bill passed in early January when everyone came back into session? It just seemed like such a, I mean, it’s a Democrat trifecta in New York state. It just seemed like a slam dunk. What held it up?

State Senator Gounardes: Well, were trying, New York for All is an important piece of a much broader puzzle, much bigger puzzle. And there are many other things that we want to do to protect immigrant New Yorkers that are not covered by New York for All. For example, what happens when schools are involved, when children are removed from schools, when parents are separated from their kids, when someone, an ICE agent shows up at a school and a school staff member doesn’t know how to respond and they let someone in the building inappropriately.

You know, there’s no guidance there. What do we do around other types of sensitive locations? Churches, hospitals, daycare centers, things like that. What legal recourse do people have when their civil rights have been violated by these ICE officers? Are there measures we can put in law to give people access to the courthouse whenever their civil rights have been violated by ICE, as we’ve seen happen across the country? So we had been working to put together a comprehensive immigration package, the centerpiece of which would have been New York for all with a couple of these secondary but equally as important pieces.

And then the governor put out her proposal right after she dropped her, made her executive budget presentation. And then the immigration conversation got folded into the budget debate. And so we’re on this track right now where everything is being negotiated as part of the budget. The budget is nearly a month late and we only have a couple of weeks left before the legislature gavels out of session. And so this might be the only opportunities we have to pass as comprehensive a package of immigration protections as we can get this year.

BJ: Right, and so then we only have time for one more question because I know you have to run, so just just tell us in brief where where are we right now as of this morning this recording and what can people do to help push it over the finish line?

State Senator Gounardes: Well, right now we are still trying to push back against the governor’s proposals and to try to bring her closer to the New York for All side of the spectrum to say that there should be no instances in which local police are actively working with ICE. That local police are not creating fabricated instances of probable cause to turn someone over to ICE, that local police are not taking civil infraction matters and then turning them into criminal investigations to justify sharing information with ICE.

I think that anyone who’s concerned about keeping ICE in check and anyone that is concerned about protecting ⁓ immigrant and non-immigrant neighbors alike need to make sure that they are calling the governor’s office and calling their state legislators, state legislators telling them that this is really important to them and that we should not sacrifice, be willing to sacrifice people’s safety under the guise of trying to do something that’s actually not going to protect people.

BJ: That’s perfect. And for people listening, I can’t stress enough the importance of calling Paula Kay, Chris Eachus and James Skoufis, all of whom, at least in principle, support New York for All. I at least say they do, but some of them have given reasons that they won’t co-sign or sponsor the bill because they’re afraid of their constituents, apparently. So please do get on the phones. Senator Gounardes thank you so much for joining us this morning.

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Note to readers:

We have reached out to Assembly Member Kay about her meeting with the Mid-Hudson Valley DSA concerning New York For All. Eric Feinblatt on behalf of the MHVDSA told The Monroe Gazette. We hope to get clarity on what her exact positions are, and how she will vote, on both NY4All and Dignity not Detention. A post on Dignity Not Detention is forthcoming.

“Four representatives of Mid-Hudson Valley DSA traveled to Albany on April 21 to take part in the No Collusion, No Cages Advocacy Day and meet with Assembly Member Paula Kay about two immigration bills moving through the Legislature: New York for All and Dignity Not Detention.

We had scheduled the meeting a week earlier, but were told that Assembly Member Kay would be unavailable all day and that we could instead meet with an administrative assistant. We sent the assistant our talking points and asked that they be shared with Kay in advance, so she could come prepared for a substantive discussion. When we arrived, however, it became clear that the “assistant” was actually an intern who was unfamiliar with both bills and said she could not speak on Kay’s behalf. This was the second time Kay had sent an intern to meet with DSA’s Solidarity Working Group.

Kay then stepped out of her office, asked what the meeting was about, glanced at her schedule on a computer screen, and decided it would be better to join the conversation herself.

Her answers were essentially the same as when I met with her five weeks earlier in Narrowsburg: she said she would support New York for All, though not sponsor it, but, as a former prosecutor, could not support Dignity Not Detention. That position seemed inconsistent and suggested a limited understanding of the legislation. When pressed, she shifted to saying that she had received significant constituency feedback opposing Dignity Not Detention, which raised further questions. Are her constituents really able to distinguish between these two bills so clearly? Is she?

We asked whether, if enough phone calls, emails, and postcards came in support of Dignity Not Detention, she would reconsider. She did not give a direct answer.

We left the meeting with the impression that Assembly Member Kay is making legislative decisions based on which way the political winds are blowing, though it remains unclear what is shaping those winds. Twice now, she has treated DSA’s request for a serious conversation about urgent state and national issues as worthy only of sending an intern.”

State Senator Skoufis refuses to answer any questions submitted to his office by The Monroe Gazette.

Assemblyman Chris Eachus does whatever Senator Skoufis tells him.

If we hear from any of these people, we’ll update this story here and let you know.

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We’ve suffered a loss in our family over the weekend. As many of you know, I’m the care giver for three disabled adults, so I have my hands full at the moment. We will be back on April 22nd, 2026, with your next post from The Monroe Gazette.

Episodes of our podcast, Stupid Sexy Privacy will continue without interruption because many of those have been pre-recorded. If you haven’t listened to the show, we hope you’ll check it out.

Please forgive any delays there may be in me emailing, calling, and writing back the many people who provide us with tips and additional information for our stories.

-BJ

P.S. Our lawsuit with South Blooming Grove is still waiting to be heard by the judge.

This is the lawsuit where we’re asking for documents related to the 2024 “skipped” village election, that NYS Attorney General Letitia James decided not to do anything about.

We need the information from this lawsuit in order to file the federal lawsuit against Letitia James and SBG.

So if you’re wondering, “When are we going to sue South Blooming Grove for election fraud in federal court?” The answer is, as soon as this other FOIL lawsuit is finished.

If you’re curious, the current case is BJ Mendelson v. Village of South Blooming Grove, Index No. EF012691-2025.

A copy of the petition we filed against the Village can be read here.

If you are interested in being a volunteer for the rally’s safety team on April 12th, reach out to me on Signal at bjmendelson.32 and I’ll put you in touch with the appropriate people.

You can You can RSVP here for the April 12th event.

And just a reminder for those living in Southern Orange County (Chester, Warwick, Tuxedo, Sloatsburg, Monroe, Woodbury, Blooming Grove, and Palm Tree) that Hands Off Hudson Valley will be having another stand-up event this Saturday, April 11th, at 1pm at the corner of 17M and Lake Street. All are welcome.

Special note for Village and Town of Monroe residents: We are looking for Monroe residents who want to join us in organizing a resistance to the South Blooming Grove led takeover of our Village, as well as advocating for the Town of Monroe to pass the resolution announcing its support for New York For All.

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(The following podcast transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.)

BJ Mendelson, reporter, The Monroe Gazette: Well, hello everyone. Thank you for joining this free edition of The Monroe Gazette podcast. Usually these are reserved for subscribers only.

I wanted to let you know that over in Goshen on Sunday, April 12th at 1 p.m. is going to be another Melt ICE event in Orange County. A lot of us have, I think we’ve all done the victory lap at this point of preventing DHS and ICE, for now, from setting up over in the Village of Chester. But as I keep trying to remind people that fight isn’t over.

In an official statement provided by the Department of Homeland Security to the Monroe Gazette, they said at this time, being the keywords, they have no new concentration camps — They didn’t use those words. I’m using those words — to announce. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve necessarily abandoned the village of Chester. So a lot of us all did a victory lap, and now I think it’s time to sort of refocus. And I’m not the only one, because the local DSA chapter and a number of great organizations throughout our part of New York are organizing a rally.

It’s called Melt ICE in Orange County. And again, it’s Sunday, April 12th at 1pm at the Village Green. South Church Street and Main Street in Goshen. So I hope to see you all there.

Noel, would you like to take a moment just to introduce yourself?

Noelle Peñas, New York Lawyers for The Public Interest: Hi, I’m Noelle. I’m the health justice community organizer with NLP New York Lourdes for the Public Interest and for years since about 2017 we’ve working to advocate for improved medical care in detention centers in New York State and then after repeated efforts to advocate for reform we realized ultimately there will never be adequate care in these detention centers and are not advocating for the closure of these jails so that folks can receive care in their communities.

BJ: Now, when you say adequate care can you just explain a little bit about what that means when it comes to the people in the facility? What are they expected to get versus what are they not getting?

Noelle: They should be getting the care that they would be receiving otherwise if they weren’t detained. ICE has also provided its own national detention standards for medical care. And so this is another standard of care that should be adhered to. But in practice, people are experiencing critical gaps of care. This includes lack of follow-up care for conditions that they experienced prior to entering detention. [Such as a] lack of proper medication, sometimes not receiving medication at all, lack of nutrition or language access, and also incorrect treatment. And we can go deeper into this as well. But overall, when people are requesting care, ICE has showed repeatedly that they are not adhering to the own standards that they provide.

BJ: Yeah, and you know, there’s just published reports now about the number of people that have been killed while in detention at facilities across the country that are operated by DHS and ICE.

And we’ve had anther guest on previously who represents a legal organization where she was saying, you know, Orange County Jail in particular, there’s questions of people not necessarily getting blankets, for example, to our food, for example, that would be adequate for their dietary restrictions.

And so we’ve definitely been paying attention of issues at Orange County Jail in Goshen and some of the issues surrounding ICE. So just so people who are listening this understand, there is about, and this isn’t the exact number, but there’s about 470 total inmates at Orange County Jail and about 110 of them are officially ICE detainees.

And how it’s supposed to work is they’re supposed to be kept in a separate wing, although reporting from the New York Times has indicated that at least on one occasion documented from the Times, someone that was supposed to be in what’s called the ICE wing was actually in the general population, which is not how that’s supposed to work.

So, Noelle, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the report that came out, Denied Care, Denied Dignity.

This is something that was circulated in Signal groups as we were organizing over what was proposed for Chester. And I think it kind of got lost in the shuffle. So I’m hoping you can tell us a little bit about the findings of the report.

Noelle: Sure, I can share a bit of the background on how we started developing this report. This is our third report documenting the conditions of medical neglect in detention centers in New York State, specifically, Orange County Jail. For this report, this captured referrals that we received between January 2022 and May 2024. During this time, we received overall 92 referrals to our medical providers network. 37 of these referrals were for New Yorkers across the country. 19 of these were for clients detained in New York. And these were the individuals profiled in the report. And to share a bit more on our methodology for analyzing the medical data, the medical letters serve as a primary data source for this report. So we receive requests for medical legal advocacy for legal health assessments to our medical providers network.

And upon receiving these requests for referrals, we’ll partner with volunteers for MPN to conduct medical records reviews, to also evaluate the adequacy of care provided, and then to identify any violations of established medical standards. We then work with these doctors who will synthesize their findings into advocacy letters that the legal teams then use to support their clients’ And so these are the letters we’re referring to that serve as a primary data source for the report.

And for these 19 individuals, they each had critical gaps in their medical care while detained by ICE. And so we also worked with healthcare professionals to analyze the data from these medical letters and we found patterns that we ended up categorizing to four different types of failures of medical care, but they also overlap. Some examples we’ll share is when people come into OCJ, they will not receive follow-up care for conditions they had prior to OCJ. They’ll either have care that was supposed to be planned but was never completed, care that was provided only after significant delays, and sometimes care is never planned at all. What this looks like is, for example, someone has come in diagnosed with glaucoma in one of his eyes and he had already been prescribed daily eye drops to manage pressure and to prevent vision loss. But once he was detained, he was denied access to his medication and that puts him at risk of irreversible optic nerve damage and blindness. He was also withheld lidocaine or medication for post dental extraction pain. And in another instance, he was denied hemorrhoid treatment. So these are just overlaps of a denial of medical care. We’ve also seen people being given really insufficient pain medication treatment for, for example, for chronic back pain, someone was just given a mattress. Another patient was, another individual was denied anesthesia for a tooth extraction, which is a pretty very severe withholding of adequate medication care.

We’ve also seen folks being denied necessary tooth extractions or receiving a botched spilling procedure which resulted in facial pain and swelling. Or they’ll be experiencing chronic pain and they’re just prescribed over-the-counter medication and they really need chronic pain management. And we also see this in mental health care plans as well.

Another individual was suffering from major depressive disorder with psychotic features, but he was prescribed an antidepressant dosage that was way below the recommended therapeutic level. And that can lead to an escalation of psychotic episodes, suicidal ideation, or complete functional impairment. And these are patterns. Many times, folks will receive multiple instances or have experienced multiple instances of denial of medication or improper treatment.

BJ: Yeah, it’s sort of astounding to me when you compound that with sometimes the lack of or inadequate access to legal counsel or the reports of people that were supposed to be seen by an attorney that then got shipped off in the dead of night without anyone knowing about it. Let me ask you … Because OCJ in particular has a history, right? Like it has a history of previously there was a hunger strike there. The New York City ACLU has previously documented some of the issues at OCJ. Did that play a role in selecting OCJ as the subject for this report?

Noelle: We selected OCJ because the greatest number of referrals came to us from OCJ. It’s the primary detention center with lapses of medical care where we’re receiving referrals, unfortunately.

BJ: Wow, okay. So, you know, and this is just my opinion. It doesn’t sound like Steve Neuhaus who is the County Executive, ever got the message, right? In terms of properly taking care of the prison population here.

As I think I mentioned before we started recording that the Monroe Gazette has asked people to send ice scrapers to his office to encourage him to cancel the contract between Orange County and ICE DHS, which is, I’ve been told from members of the legislature, only he can terminate the agreement specifically.

So it has to come from him. Let me ask, because these findings are alarming. Anytime anyone has been denied basic medical care, it’s a denial of their human rights. What steps were taken after the report was completed to share this with Orange County?

Noelle: We reached out to organizations based in Orange County to share our report since local officials are more likely to listen to folks that are advocating based within Orange County. we’ve reached out to, alongside the Dignity Not Detention Coalition, have reached out to a couple of folks. We, from what we’ve been hearing through our work with the coalition … There’s been some interest and concern, but... many have taken more the position that further investigation is needed before action can be taken. We’ve also reached out to some outlets and have been able to speak about our report in a few with some local media.

BJ: And what’s the response been like from the county itself in terms of the report? Because I remember looking through this and it came after we had already talking to a number of organizations that were reporting similar issues and had also mentioned the historical problems at OCJ. But what did the county say in terms of this report?

Noelle: That I am not too sure of.

BJ: Well, I can tell you from what we saw, I have to preface this. And I know we talked about it before I started recording. But so for people listening to The Monroe Gazette has documented a number of instances where we’ve submitted FOIL requests to Orange County. Orange County then delays them repeatedly. And we’ve caught County Attorney [Rick] Golden stating that there are no records for some of these requests, lo and behold, for us to have some of the records that he claims does not exist.

We also pressed him quite a bit, and this is probably getting into the weeds, but there’s a court case that’s going on concerning Gonzaga Park and Orange County and claims made by the village of South Blooming Grove that Rick Golden was present at a meeting, which he publicly claims he’s not. There’s been, this is a long way of saying that we have concerns about statements that come from Orange County, statements that come from County executive Neuhaus, you know, we’ve documented him specifically on issues of immigration lying.

For example, during his county address one year, he told the story of for some reason he was at the border. You know, for whatever reason, a county executive in upstate New York is at the southwestern border. You know, he claimed that he was down there in a man cross that allegedly had enough fentanyl on him. And this is a direct quote, to kill everyone in New York City. Of course, that wasn’t true.

But that’s just to give people listening a kind of the context of what the response from the county when we do try to get answers from them on issues about OCJ or issues just about general operations. And the one thing I did see was Golden kind of dismissing this report saying that the findings weren’t true.

But then the Monroe Gazette did reach out to him and said, OK, well, if you’re disputing this report that was put out, surely, you you you’ve issued some kind of response or you’ve talked to the people at NYLPI about about their findings.

Pictured Above: The Monroe Gazette first reached out to Orange County to discuss the NYLPI report back in February. As of this writing in April, we have received no response from either County Executive Steve Neuhaus or County Attorney Rick Golden about the report.

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BJ: Has there been any communication with Rick Golden since the report came out?

Noelle: No, they have not reached out to us.

BJ: Yeah, that’s, I figured, I mean, I was kind of teeing you up for that. Yeah, but that’s just, it’s unfortunate and it’s frustrating. And so that kind of brings me to, you know, I mentioned the Melt ICE event in Orange County, which again is Sunday, April 12th at 1pm at the Village Green, which is South Church Street and Main Street in Goshen. So people that are interested in having Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus — who again is the only person who can do this, terminate the agreement between Orange County and DHS ICE to house detainees at Orange County Jail — they should come out.

Let me ask you, after the report came out, has there still been investigations or exploration as to what’s going on in Orange County Jail? Is it still something that you guys are keeping track of?

Noelle: Yes, in the sense that we continue to receive referrals from advocates representing clients detained in Orange County Jail. We received a as recently as last week.

BJ: Oh wow

Noelle: Yeah.

BJ: What can people do, and this is really the next to last question for you, what can people do who are listening to this who are interested, I mean, obviously we’ll post to the report, we’ll make sure people can see it when we run the transcript for this. So we’ll make sure people are aware of it …

But what can people do to help the work that you do and to also help the detainees at Orange County Jail?

Noelle: I would encourage folks to join the groups that are organizing locally in Orange County to fight back for the closure of Orange County Jail.

This includes the Dignity Not Detention Coalition, which is in contact with orgs in Orange County. The coalition is also running a hotline in Orange County jail where folks can reach out. I would also encourage folks to try to visit folks who are detained to join the letter writing events that the coalition host to join the phones apps as well to join in actions. Sharing about the issue to the elected officials continuing to raise the issue. I would say that really these detention centers were in our design to isolate people from community and to make them feel like they’re alone and that people have forgotten about them.

And so what we can do as community is to show up and to let them know that we’re still fighting for them and that we haven’t forgotten and to continue to reach out. Show up and tell them that we’re still fighting for them and that we have a good bottom and to continue to reach out.

And to try to fight for the passage of legislation that would terminate contracts with Orange County Jail because ultimately, while reforms would be great, while oversight and accountability would be great, the only way to really ensure that people don’t suffer is to terminate these jails. And you can do that by passing the Dignity not detention act and also related legislation like New York for All, which would, end collaboration between local government and ICE.

BJ: Yeah, and just for people listening, you know, I keep I keep talking about the big five bills to protect us from the Trump regime. You know, it’s it’s New York for all. It’s the New York melt act. It’s the New York Dignity Not Detention Act. It’s the Privacy Act and it’s the Health Act. And currently our state senator, James G. Skoufis, does not support New York for all. He does support the melt act. Although I think that that seems to be reluctant on his part. And our state assemblymen for people that are listening to us in our typical coverage region, which is Monroe-Woodbury, your assemblyman, Chris Eachus who’s a Democrat, does not support any of these bills.

And then if you live in one part of Monroe, you are unfortunately represented by Carl Brabenec who is one of the few Republicans who also does not support any of these bills.

It’s frustrating to me that January 7th was the first day in a state where we have a Democratic trifecta, they did not pass any of these bills including New York for all. So I’m glad that you mentioned that because that’s, it’s infuriating to me. Like we have had all this time to pass these bills and as we record this, none of those bills have been passed, although it looks like the melt act will survive in some form.

Let me ask you my last question. So specifically about NYLPI, what, if people are listening to this and they’re learning about you for the first time, how can they support the work that you do?

Noelle: I would say get organized. The work that we do is because we’re fighting for the health and safety of our communities in New York, but any of the policies or reform that we’re fighting for can only be passed when our communities want it and are also pressuring our representatives to pass these bills. And the more we’re organized, the more we build collective power, the more effective our work can be.

BJ: Yeah, I agree. We’ve been telling people to organize local signal groups with their neighbors. Is there anything that, you know, I didn’t ask you that you think is worth mentioning?

Noelle: Concerning claims that the data is not being sufficient to potentially reveal any patterns at Orange County Jail, I would... I would say that the experiences of 19 people should be enough. And even if one person was experiencing this, should already because for some kind of urgency for investigation or accountability. And so I would hope that representatives with the ability to terminate the contract would see these experiences and for this to be enough. I’m not sure how many people, like how many people would be needed to establish a pattern is my question. I think the experiences of 19 people should already be sufficient.

BJ: Our philosophy is that everybody counts. If it’s one person that has a problem, the problem should be addressed. I totally agree with that.

Noelle: I appreciate all the work that you’re doing documenting this, not letting the pressure up and making sure that the support gets out there and does the work that needs to do.

BJ: Well, thank you. Let me me put in one more point before we go. So again, Melt ICE in Orange County. It’s a rally to end Orange County’s contract with ICe for the ICE detention wing at Orange County Jail. There’s over 100 people that are held currently there. It’s a significant chunk of the OCJ population. So it’s incredible to me that we are holding so many people there often without them receiving their due process or adequate access t attorneys and to basic medical needs.

So if you are as outraged as I am, it’s Sunday, April 12th at 1pm at the Village Green. That’s South Church Street and Main Street and Goshen. We’ll post the link for people who are interested in attending. You can RSVP here.

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Pictured Above: The March 2025 swearing in of former Woodbury Town Board member, Kelly Rinaldi. The local equivalent of former British Prime Minister, Liz Truss.

Happy Monday. We’re back. If you missed last week’s episode of our Stupid Sexy Privacy podcast, you can check it out here.

Our other podcasts, The Finley and Privacy Tips, will return as soon as I finish “How to Protect Yourself From Fascists & Weirdos.” It’s looking like the end of the month for that book to be completely edited.

Just a reminder: This book is free. All you need to do is sign up for the Stupid Sexy Privacy newsletter. As soon as the .pdf and .mp3 of the book are ready, we’ll send them to you. And if you want additional tips on how to protect yourself from fascists and weirdos, that newsletter has everything you need every Thursday morning.

Now, due to a request for privacy, at the time of this writing, I can’t give you the full context behind this story. Someone died. It’s very sad, and we’d like to give our condolences to those affected by this loss. When it becomes appropriate to do so, we’ll fill you in.

But.

I can give you something incredibly shitty that happened related to this loss. And, honestly, even if you don’t live in Southern Orange County — a bigger and bigger chunk of our readership as we transition towards covering more state-wide and national news in addition to the local coverage — there’s still a lesson to be learned here. Or two at least.

The first explains how karma actually works.

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If you’d like to become an annual subscriber and get access to our private Facebook group, the ability to leave a comment on these posts, and subscriber only posts like this one, we hope you’ll join us.

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Pictured Above: A couple of hours after a tragic loss was shared on Facebook, former Woodbury Town Board member, Kelly Rinaldi, decided to share what many Woodbury residents claim was her opinion on that passing. (The Monroe Gazette was unaware of this story until numerous Woodbury residents sent us these screenshots voicing their outrage. The Monroe Gazette reached out to Mrs. Rinaldi for comment and will update this story if we hear back. We’ve included Mrs. Rinaldi’s response at the bottom of today’s post. Mrs. Rinaldi has since deleted the above Facebook post.)

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Current Woodbury Town Board member, Gretchen Weiners, decided to chime in as well. This was followed by the wife of Woodbury Town Board member — and far right MAGA Bigot — Brandon Calore. The other two people in the picture above were blurred because they are not public figures or closely associated with a public figure. We’ve previously written about Mrs. Calore’s odd behavior toward Woodbury residents here.

Now, if you don’t live in Southern Orange County, all you need to know is that Kelly Rinaldi is essentially the local equivalent of former British Prime Minister, Liz Truss. Mrs. Truss served as Prime Minister for 50 days, which is the shortest tenure in British history.

During the dark times of the Luciani Error — not a typo — in the Town of Woodbury, the Woodbury Town Board saw not one, but two resignations. The first being Timothy Finnegan, who formerly operated Finnegan’s Pub at 504 State Route 32 in Highland Mills. The bar was owned by local real estate douche developer, Wayne Corts. Mr. Corts then sold the bar to 297 Hart LLC, who then sold it to Yeh Realty Holdings LLC. We mention this because Yeh Realty Holdings LLC is based in South Blooming Grove, not too far from Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove headquarters at 29 Merriewold Lane South, and may be owned by Yosef Horowitz.

You can draw your own conclusions there as to whether or not these things are connected, given Isaac Ekstein’s involvement in the most recent Village and Town elections in Woodbury. Both Stern and Ekstein are alleged to be at the center of an ongoing federal investigation involving voter fraud and voter coercion. Allegedly, New York State’s Attorney General Letitia James is investigating them as well, but we’ll believe that when we see it.

The second resignation was of Robert Beckley, who replaced Timothy Finnegan. To this day, Mr. Beckley has not explained or commented on his abrupt departure from the Woodbury Town Board. It’s speculated that Mr. Beckley did not get along with Supervisor Luciani, but there is no evidence publicly to support that conclusion. All we can say to you factually is that his resignation was abrupt, and it occurred following a tense meeting of the Woodbury Town Republican Committee. It was Ms. Rinaldi, who — over the objections of current Town Board member, Martha Lopez, and others — was appointed to fill Beckley’s seat by Kathryn Luciani. Despite the fact that an election was starting up at the time of Beckley’s departure. Lopez and others insisted that the Town Board seat abandoned by Finnegan and then Beckley be left open so that the voters can have their say. Mrs. Katrhyn Luciani ignored these suggestions and appointed Kelly Rinaldi.

Mrs. Rinaldi proceeded to miss a bunch of meetings, and when she was present, did little more than nod her head at what Mrs. Luciani had to say. This can be verified by watching any Woodbury Town Board meeting between March and Rinaldi’s sudden and permanent disappearance in November of 2025. (Upon losing their respective bids for re-election, Mrs. Rinaldi ghosted the Woodbury Town Board for the duration of the term she was appointed to serve.)

The Monroe Gazette has reached out to the Town of Woodbury to confirm the exact number of meetings missed by Kelly Rinaldi, as well as how much money she made while acting as a rubber stamp for the corrupt and inept Luciani-Calore administration. We will share that information once provided.

That’s Not How Karma Works, Kelly

Let’s assume for a second that Mrs. Rinaldi is not a Buddhist. So, if that’s the case, it’s probably true she doesn’t believe in death and rebirth.

Outside of like, Jesus.

So if we’re talking about spiritual rebirth, and bringing what you did — or did not do, like show up to Woodbury Town Board meetings — then that’s how karma works in one sense. If you’re a terrible person in one life, in the next life, you’re going to face the consequences of your actions, or at least suffer in some form because of the consequences of your actions in a previous life.

It’s a safe bet this isn’t what Mrs. Rinaldi is talking about in her Facebook post.

And also, Buddhism, like any religion, is not a monolith. So your mileage may vary as to this explanation and whether or not it’s believed or followed by all Buddhists.

So then there’s the other kind of karma, which is that — if you like the works of Thích Nhất Hạnh like I do — you subscribe to this idea of interbeing. Basically, it’s aligned with a similar belief found in Shintoism that everything is interconnected with everything else on an atomic level. In that sense, karma doesn’t refer to some God sitting around and keeping score of how you behave. (Which, I feel, is how we get this Western misinterpretation of Karma in the first place, because it fits in perfectly with the monotheistic religions and their concept of a singular God that’s keeping score.)

Basically, karma in this sense means, if you’re a good person, then by virtue of being a good person, you’re making the people and environment around you better in ways that you and others may not even realize.

If you’re an asshole, the opposite is true.

You’re making everything and everyone around you worse, which is funny since we’re talking about Kathryn Luciani’s Reign of Error in Woodbury. Her behavior, and the behavior of her other Town Board members (specifically Luongo and Calore), made Woodbury worse through their actions in both big tangible ways — like gutting the Woodbury ethics law — and small ways, like the chaotic dysfunction caused by multiple resignations and giving away Town Board jobs to your friends.

That’s karma. That’s how that works. If you do something bad, like Teresa Luongo/Gretchen Weiner’s threatening to dox the former town supervisor at a Town Board meeting, you’re not going to suddenly get instant justice for your bad behavior.

Make sense? So, what we have here instead isn’t an example of karma. We have here an example of what happens when you scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of finding people to represent you in local government.

Go Door to Door and Keep Going Door to Door

Recently, there’s been a big discussion about the need for more volunteers in Woodbury. Volunteers for different boards like the deeply troubled Woodbury Public Library Board. Volunteers for the Animal Shelter. And just getting people more engaged with their local government.

Here’s the thing, though …

Politics, whether it’s local, state, or national, is an aristocratic activity.

That doesn’t mean everyone involved is wealthy. Although wealthy people like Wayne Corts, James G. Skoufis, and Avrum Bur Jacobowitz certainly like to try to shape and warp our local elections. But what it means is that the people who typically show up to Town Board meetings, volunteer, and vote have the luxury of time to do so.

Most people don’t have that.

Most people live paycheck to paycheck. Many are working two jobs, if not three. And others are trying to juggle not only their jobs, but taking care of their kids or their elderly parents. That’s not to say these people couldn’t make time to volunteer — some can — but they’re going to need some convincing. That’s because they’re constantly being bombarded by messages of government bloat and inefficiency (on the Right) and government corruption and inaction of the government to enforce the laws against the wealthy (on the Left). This isn’t about which side is correct. This is about the information we’re constantly being hit with, that we all need to filter out.

So, when you say at your meeting, already attended by people who can afford to contribute some of their limited time — we are all time constrained in one way, shape, or form, some more than others, though — that’s not going to reach the people you want to reach. Neither is posting on Facebook. As we’ve said repeatedly here at The Monroe Gazette, these Facebook groups are great for activating your base. But they’re not very good at reaching the 90% of people who are not getting their news and information from these Facebook groups in your community.

What you need to do is make phone calls and go door to door, as your local government, and make your pitch directly.

The funny thing is that when it’s election time, we already do this with our petitions. (Petitions for my state Senate campaign are available for you to sign, by the way.)

But after election season is over, all that door knocking stops. It shouldn’t. Especially when you live in a place like southern Orange County that is almost entirely a news desert.

This disengagement isn’t a southern Orange County problem though. It’s an American problem. And it’s one that’s up to all of us to solve. Because if we don’t, we will keep getting worse and worse local, state, and national candidates to choose from, like Kelly Rinaldi.

That’s an example of how karma actually works.

So, for whatever it’s worth, my advice is to continue knocking on doors on behalf of the local government and recruit the volunteers that way. And in the process, ask those people what the local government can do for them. Because while it’s nice to help small businesses, the business of government should never be about business. The business of government should always be about making sure everyone knows how their taxes are being spent; and making sure that the government is doing all it can to help their community. Especially now, as we experience a national emergency and crisis of leadership at the very top.

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4/7/26 1:31pm Update:

We had a chance to speak with Mrs. Rinaldi. She claims the comment was not directed at the person Woodbury residents assumed it was. She gave us permission to provide her statement below. Out of respect for the family’s privact we’ve removed their names, but have left the statement otherwise intact.

The truth is since the election I have not been on Facebook that much. My Facebook use to be private but when it was election time I had to make it public. I forgot after elections to put it back to private. As for [Name Removed] I did not know [Name removed] died at the time of my post and I am very sorry [Name removed] died.

I have nothing against [name removed] we have always been hello and good by to each other even when I was on the board. I may not agree with some of the politics but I have nothing personally against [name removed]. As for the post it has to do with my friend in Texas if you need to know. My response to [Woodbury resident] Janine [Cortese] and her husband was well deserved. It would have been better to just ask me privately and then I would have told her the same I am telling you. I took it [the post] down due to the harsh comments left by Janine and I and also no I would never in my life talk about anyone who lost a family member that way that is horrible.

I too lost my husband tell me does it make sense for someone to say that about another human being that just lost their loved one no. As for the other people that comment on that post I don’t know what they were talking about or meant you will have to ask them. I took this off out of respect for [Name removed] and her family also even though I didn’t have to. Now there is the truth and that will be the last time you will ever contact me.

Mrs. Rinaldi missed a total of five meetings during her brief tenure as a member of the Woodbury Town Board. Her appointment cost Woodbury taxpayers $9,641 according to the Town of Woodbury.

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Pictured Above: Congressman Pat Ryan refuses to support a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United (House Resolution 54). Of New York State’s 26 congressional representatives, 19 are Democrats. Of those 19 Democrats, 10 support House Resolution 54.

Congressman Ryan is not one of them.

A big part of the reason Ryan does not support this bill is that Congressman Ryan accepts large sums from MAGA-aligned billionaire front groups such as AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

Don’t let their name fool you: AIPAC has little to do with what’s best for Israel and more to do with keeping Republicans in power and pushing the Democratic Party further to the right.

As George Washington warned in his Farewell Address, Americans should be wary of allowing foreign countries to influence our government. As we approach America’s 250th birthday this July, we should recommit ourselves to preventing the wealthy, and any foreign country, from influencing our politicians, regardless of party.

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There’s no shortage of local and national news to cover right now. But today, I want to direct your attention to something short and simple you can do once a week that will make a difference in your local community.

If you don’t live in Congressman Pat Ryan’s district, that’s okay—you can copy and paste the same process explained below and apply it to your congressional representatives.

Before we get to that, the Monroe Gazette is aiming to sign up 500 new annual subscribers between now and December 31. There’s no paywall for our archives and no advertising—we’re entirely reader-supported.

If you like what we do, please consider becoming a new annual subscriber by signing up below. Subscribers receive bonus content like this subscriber-only post, access to our private Facebook group, and the ability to comment on posts like the one you’re reading.

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Step 0: If You Are Not Represented by Pat Ryan

If you are not represented by Congressman Pat Ryan, call the United States House of Representatives switchboard at (202) 224-3121. They can help you identify your representative and connect you directly to their office.

All of the steps below will be the same no matter who you’re calling.

Step 1: Identify Yourself as a Constituent

For this exercise, be sure you’re calling the correct representative — in my case, Pat Ryan of New York’s 18th District.

While it can be useful to contact politicians who don’t represent you, this particular action is most effective when done by actual constituents.

Congressman Ryan’s district is displayed below. You’ll see all of Orange County (it’s shaped like the head of a dog.) Within Orange County, over by Monroe, is the Village of South Blooming Grove. We talk a lot about South Blooming Grove here at the Monroe Gazette.

When the person in Congressman Pat Ryan’s office answers, identify yourself as a constituent and tell them where you live. (See the sample script below.) Make sure to include your zip code when you do. The zip code verifies that you’re a constituent in their system.

Step 2: Identify Your Position on a Specific Issue

Don’t do the Grandpa Simpson thing and rattle off every complaint you have about the congressman.

Be specific: name the single issue you’re calling about and state your position on it (for or against.)

Keep calls to one issue. Staffers are underpaid and overwhelmed, and you want them to document your call accurately.

Not every issue ties to a bill. If you’re calling about the alleged voter suppression and coercion in South Blooming Grove—conduct Pat Ryan should comment on, but hasn’t—there may be no specific legislation to cite. That’s fine, but without a bill your call is more likely to be lost in the system and may not be consistently tracked.

For this specific exercise, call Pat Ryan’s office every Tuesday about a specific bill: House Resolution 54.

The Citizens United decision has warped our national, state, and local politics.

For example, here in Southern Orange County: 2025 saw Democratic State Senator, James G. Skoufis, form an independent expenditure committee (New York’s version of a super PAC).

Mr. Skoufis, a man who ran to be chair of the Democratic National Committee, then spent over $20,000 supporting far-right MAGA bigot Brandon Calore for Woodbury mayor—an action made possible by Citizens United.

If you don’t want state senators, AIPAC, or others spending large sums on local elections, you have an interest in seeing House Resolution 54 passed.

Step 3: Request That The Staff Call You Back

Unless you’re Joel Stern (far left) or Isaac Ekstein (right, next to Pat Ryan)—both men are alleged to be at the center of a federal case involving voter suppression, voter fraud, and coercion in South Blooming Grove—you’re never going to get this close to Pat Ryan.

Stern and Ekstein have a friendly relationship with the congressman and significant access; Pat Ryan even has his own tag for Joel Stern’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove newsletter.

But that doesn’t mean his people can’t call you back.

When you call the congressman’s office, you should—and absolutely can—request that someone contact you back. Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll send a generic form letter about how hard Congressman Ryan is working for you. It doesn’t matter. The point is to always ask for a reply and for them to clarify the congressman’s position on your issue.

When I asked Pat Ryan’s team for a response on House Resolution 54, I received a generic letter that didn’t even mention Citizens United. (See below.)

So, you bet your ass I’m going to keep calling them until I get an answer.

The point here is not the lack of response but your continued effort to request, and ultimately obtain, a reply.

Your elected officials work for you. It’s not the other way around.

Step 4: Call Every Week Around The Same Time

This is the most important part: it’s not enough to call Congressman Pat Ryan once on a Tuesday. You must call his office every Tuesday until you get an actual response from him or his staff on your issue.

This is where everyone messes up.

It’s not that you called—individually, our voices are easy to ignore. Unlike Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein, most of us don’t have wealthy friends like Avraham Ber Jakobowitz (sometimes spelled Avrom Bur Jacobowitz) to buy and keep a congressman’s attention.

Volume is what matters for us.

If, of 3,000 South Blooming Grove residents, 500 called Pat Ryan every week, things would change quickly about the voter suppression and election fraud. But we don’t do it. So nothing does.

Instead, Pat Ryan will call his friend Joel Stern, ask Stern about the illegal helipad at 58 Fort Worth, Stern will tell Ryan too bad, so sad, and then Ryan will shrug his shoulders and tell his constituents there’s nothing he can do for them.

(This by the way, is currently happening to Monroe resident, Mr. Javier Dam, who’s property connects to 58 Fort Worth.)

This tactic of calling at the same time every week applies to any issue. If you want a politician to respond, it takes many people calling about the same issue repeatedly, at the same time, and all asking for a response.

That’s the bad news.

The good news: everyone has five minutes on a Tuesday to call Pat Ryan’s office and ask, for example, why the congressman does not support a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United—and to urge him to publicly commit to co-sponsoring House Resolution 54.

You can use this tactic with any representative on any issue. Just follow the four steps explained here and share this post when you’re done.

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Example Call Script

(Note that the items below in bold are just to show you the parts of the four steps mentioned above. Don’t take the bold to mean you should shout those parts. As funny as that would be, it would be counterproductive to our goal here.)

Hi. My name is _________________ and I am a resident of ______________. My zip code is ___________, which makes me a constituent of Pat Ryan. How are you?

Great. I’m calling to let the Congressman know I support House Resolution 54 Which is a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United. I am greatly concerned about corporations, billionaires, and other wealthy individuals controlling which candidates get nominated, and which candidates get elected.

Of the 19 New York Congressional Democrats, 10 of them support this bill. Congressman Ryan does not.

I am requesting that someone from the Congressman’s office call me back at _______________ to explain why Congressman Pat Ryan does not support overturning Citizens United.

I will continue to call every Tuesday until I have a satisfactory answer. Thank you for your time.

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This is a little bit of an experiment. I took the audio transcript and ran it through Duck.Ai for spelling, grammar, and punctuation checks. I noticed it (the chat model, ChatGPT5) went ahead and made some other un-suggested and unwelcome edits; however, since I encourage you to watch the video or listen to the podcast audio, I thought I’d leave the transcript as provided.

Use it as a guide to give you an idea of what I covered, but don’t take it as the gospel.

Kiryas Skver and Introduction

All right. There is a lot happening in Sullivan County, southern Orange County, and Rockland County. We typically cover southern Orange County, but sometimes events in Rockland spill over into Sullivan County, and sometimes those events affect what’s happening where we live in southern Orange County. Often you can’t separate those things.

I’m going to do my best to work through this huge list of current news stories. If you’re watching on YouTube, you can watch us live right now. I …

Read more

BJ Mendelson: Hello there. No, the book isn’t done, but I thought tomorrow was really important. So I thought I could burn some time that should be used to finish this book, to talk about No Kings instead, so hang with me.

You might be wondering what’s going on in my area. There are events everywhere in Orange County. We will have a list of the ones that we’re aware of in today’s edition of the Monroe Gazette. I just want to talk to you about the one in Monroe, though.

Local Event Details Beyond Monroe

Goshen No Kings Event Details:

• What: ‘No Kings’ Rally

• When: Saturday, March 28, 2026

• Where: Village Green, corner of Main Street and South Church St

• Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Warwick No Kings Event Details:

• What: ‘No Kings’ Rally

• When: Saturday, March 28, 2026

• Where: At Railroad Green

• Time: 10am-11:30am

Port Jervis No Kings Event Details:

• What: ‘No Kings’ Rally

• When: Saturday, March 28, 2026

• Where: Veteran’s Memorial Park

• Time: 12-2pm

Cornwall

• What: ‘No Kings’ Rally

• When: Saturday, March 28, 2026

• Where: Cornwall Plaza Sidewalk 17 Quaker Av (Don’t go to Skoufis’s office. Boo him for trying to ban masks for protests and doing literally nothing to pass New York For All.)

• Time: 12-2pm

Middletown

• What: ‘No Kings’ Rally

• When: Saturday, March 28, 2026

• Where: 14 Old Church St.

• Time: 11:30am-1pm

Newburgh

• What: ‘No Kings’ Rally

• When: Saturday, March 28, 2026

• Where: Colden Street & 2nd Street

• Time: 12-2pm

And of course …

March 28th at 1 p.m. in the Village of Monroe on the corner of 17M and Lake Street.

That’s going to be where, if you’ve driven through the Village of Monroe on a Saturday, you might have seen Hands Off Hudson Valley. There’s some other groups that have also been out protesting, but Hands Off Hudson Valley is there every other Saturday, And so that’s where you should go. Tomorrow at one o’clock, Village of Monroe. Right in the downtown, right where the mill ponds are, between the two of them, that’s where they typically gather.

Full disclosure, I am a member of the steering committee for Hands Off Hudson Valley, although really all credit goes to Carol and Nora and Irene for all of their work, because really they’re the ones driving the bus, and I’m sort of like doing the best I can as I have time to contribute. So I think it’s important to go out if you’re in Chester, if you’re in Woodbury. If you’re in Woodbury, you can go to the one in Cornwall. If you’re in Chester, you can go to the one in Warwick if you’d like. We would encourage you to come on down to Monroe, though. We think that there’s a nice base here to build off of and it’s gonna be fun.

We have 44 people signed up right now. Hopefully all 44 come.

But even if they don’t, even if it’s five people, it’s still great. And this is why I want to talk about this and this is why it’s important.

Here’s Why You Want To Come Out For Events Like No Kings

I’m going to give you an example involving climate change. Most people in America right now know that there’s a climate emergency. It doesn’t matter if you’re like the reddest red Republican or the bluest blue Democrat. The majority of Americans understand and acknowledge that we are living through a climate emergency.

The thing is, is that not a lot of people say it out loud. And the reason why is because they don’t see or hear other people talking about it. When you turn on the news, you don’t really hear about the climate emergency. When you’ve got a bad storm outside and you’ve got 60 mile per hour winds, you think, oh, well, that’s climate change. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t acknowledge it. We don’t acknowledge it because we don’t see other people talking about it. So the reason why an event like No Kings is so important is to let people know that they’re not alone

So even if there’s five people tomorrow in Monroe, March 28th at one o’clock downtown, Village Monroe … Rven if there’s five people, those five people demonstrate to others that they’re not alone, that there is a problem, that there is something worth talking about. So just showing up has a lot of power. It’s not gonna fix things overnight. We’re not gonna end the climate emergency in a weekend. We’re not gonna, regardless of your political ideology, we’re not going to get rid of the corporate influence, which has made our politics so batshit crazy overnight, right? Like that takes a constitutional amendment and that’s not something that happens overnight.

But by showing up, we start to walk down that road a little bit. And the more often these events happen and the more people show up, the further down the road we get. So it’s a starting place. So I know a of people sometimes go, why bother showing up? It won’t change anything. It does. The thing is, is that the change won’t happen overnight, right? Like nobody’s going to snap their fingers and change things. It’s going to be this constant drip over the next, God, I hope not three years, but it could very well be over the next three years, just this constant drip of people showing up and saying what’s happening is not okay.

We need things to change. And the more people show up at these events, it gives permission to other people who are kind of on the fence, which is most people right now, if we’re being honest. That’s the key here. You showing up empowers others to show up too, and the more people who come out, the more powerful you are as a group.

You’re either aware that there’s a national emergency right now, or you kind of suspect that something’s wrong, but you don’t want to deal with it, either because you’re busy, which I understand, totally get it, or because you’re afraid, which is most of us, or because you don’t know what to do, you don’t know what else to do. So by going to these events, you give permission to others to speak their thoughts out loud and share their concerns, and that gives permission for more people to tune in.

No Kings isn’t designed to change things over night.

It’s designed to give people permission to think and act as if there is a national emergency, because we know there is one. And the more of us that start to do that, the more power you start to build, the more power you start to build, the more that you can change things, whether it’s here on the local level, because there’s gonna be a big fight coming in the village of Monroe. Let me tell you, we’ll talk more about that next week.

The only way any of these things change is by showing up. And right now, not enough people show up. Not enough people show up in the Village of Monroe. Not enough people show up in Blooming Grove. Not enough people show up in Chester at the Village. At the Village Board meeting. There was only three people at the last one on March 9th.

If you want to change things, the first thing you do is show up. So what better place than tomorrow, March 28th, 1 p.m. The Village of Monroe in the downtown between the mill ponds, hands off Hudson Valley, is hosting our No Kings event.

We hope to see you there.

If you can’t make it, there are plenty of other events to join, including ones in Cornwall and Port Jervis and Warwick and Goshen. We’ll have all of that information for you. (See above.)

Either way, we just want you to get out there. And if you’re thinking, well, you know, I voted for Trump, that’s okay. You’re welcome here too. This isn’t a partisan event. This is an American event. This is us as Americans saying that there’s a problem. So if you’re a Republican and you voted for Trump, you’re welcome here. If you are super liberal, like I am, you are welcome there. If you’re on the fence and don’t have a political position, you are welcome there. That’s how you build a movement.

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Pictured above: For those of you who watch professional wrestling, you’ll get this joke. Otherwise: in AEW — think WWE with way less MAGA politics and a stunning inability to tell a coherent story for more than three characters — there is a group called the Don Callis Family. It is essentially just a huge group of dudes. A huge group of dudes was reported outside Monroe Village Hall throughout Election Day. But since posting a picture of a large group of Satmar men without context feels antisemitic, I decided to go with the Don Callis Family.

I will also use this as an opportunity to ask, “Why are there no women in the Don Callis Family?” As much as I have enjoyed AEW since the 2025 Continental Classic, this remains my biggest pet peeve. You mean to tell me there isn’t one woman on the roster who isn’t sufficiently evil enough to make evil faces at the camera? Really? REALLY?

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Where’s BJ?

Hello friends. I am still finishing up my new book, “How to Protect Yourself From Fascists & Weirdos.” So, I’ll be back with some articles and videos next week.

If you’d like a free .pdf and .mp3 of the book when it’s ready, come on over to our sister website, Stupid Sexy Privacy and sign up for the newsletter.

Until then, I’m going to share with you a few letters that have gone out. Two of them involve the scandal plagued police chief of Blooming Grove, Alex Melchiorre. As of April 1st, Mr. Melchiorre will become mayor of Monroe.

The first letter involves local grave robbing con artist, Jay Westerveld. Let’s deal with Mr. Westerveld first.

As of this writing, he has 9 business days to turn over his last three Form 990s from his Sugar Loaf Historical Society not-for-profit before I report him to the IRS.

Ticktock Jay!

Why Does This Matter?

If you want to defeat the fascists and weirdos, documentation is king.

And the simplest, easiest thing any of us can do is write letters. Whether it be to your local officials like Supervisor Jeroloman — why is your police chief not enforcing the law? — or to a Village Clerk to document election irregularities. (In New York, the Village Clerk is completely in charge of local elections.)

Document everything you can, and then write to your local elected officials and municipal employees to let them know you’re watching.

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Letter to the Town Board of Chester re: The Local Con Artist

(Note: This letter was also sent to Straus News, which continues to give Mr. Westerveld a platform despite being made aware of Mr. Jay Westerveld’s penchant for spreading virulent anti-semitic conspiracy theories, which we discussed here. We sent this letter to them because we knew they would never run it, and we wanted to prove that point.)

Dear Chester Town Board Members,

I understand that, for at least the third time since 2011, the not-for-profit organization the Sugar Loaf Historical Society—and its only visible member, as far as the public (myself included) can tell, Jay Westerveld—is lobbying for a memorial to Trooper William McDonagh in Sugar Loaf.

To the best of my knowledge at the time of this writing, no minutes, agendas, meeting dates, or other records are publicly available from this alleged organization that would indicate whether there are any board members beyond the voices in Mr. Westerveld’s head.

This alleged organization recently told readers of The Chronicle in December 2025 that it was “proud of the fact that, despite being a not-for-profit corporation registered with the IRS, they have never solicited public monies and they pay full taxes on their properties.”

Mrs. Jeanne Straus, publisher of The Chronicle, was made aware of virulent antisemitic conspiracy theories being spread by Mr. Westerveld over a year ago. I am not surprised, but nonetheless disappointed, to see that Mrs. Straus has continued to give Mr. Westerveld a platform to spread his disinformation throughout the Southern Orange County community.

This disinformation campaign, as recently as this weekend, involves the matter to which I am writing you today.

Under federal law, all not-for-profits registered with the IRS must provide their three most recent Form 990s upon request. In September 2024, the Monroe Gazette requested these forms from Mr. Westerveld. We also requested these forms from the other organizations he claims to own and operate around the region, some of which do not have functioning websites. We never received these documents. We again requested the three most recent Form 990s in March 2026 and are waiting to see if we receive them.

As part of this investigation, The Monroe Gazette found instances of Mr. Westerveld claiming to be a visiting lecturer at West Point, a claim West Point says there is no evidence to support. Mr. Westerveld also repeatedly claimed to be a visiting lecturer at Columbia University. This is, at best, a half-truth: about a decade ago he gave one lecture at Columbia’s adult extension program in or around 2014. This is not the same as being a visiting lecturer at Columbia University. Some may disagree, but I believe this pattern makes Mr. Westerveld a serial liar and speaks to his character and motivations.

I mention this because, much like the existence (or lack thereof) of the Sugar Loaf Historical Society, Mr. Westerveld’s request for a memorial to Trooper McDonagh in Sugar Loaf is fraudulent.

It is a request submitted to the Town—and then used to attack the Town if it does not cooperate with Mr. Westerveld’s wishes—in order to aid his failing attempts at local relevancy.

At no point has Mr. Westerveld discussed the memorial he has repeatedly tried to create with Trooper McDonagh’s family. Had he done so, he would know the family is adamant that it does not want, in any way, shape, or form, a memorial created where Mr. McDonagh’s life ended.

If Mr. Westerveld had, at any point in his more than decade-long quest, stopped to speak with the family, he would also have been told that there are already local memorials for Trooper McDonagh in Monroe and Middletown.

Please do not continue to humor Mr. Westerveld in his attempts to grave-rob the memory of a brave state trooper, merely to keep his own name in the public eye. That is all this man wants, and it seems he wishes to use this matter to attack the Town Board and its reputation.

If you wish to respect the memory of Trooper William McDonagh, the best course of action is to ignore Mr. Westerveld and honor the family’s wishes: Do not create any memorial in Sugar Loaf, no matter how many times Mr. Westerveld asks.

Thank you.

-BJ Mendelson

P.S. I copied The Chronicle and Warwick Advertiser on this letter, since they ran an unnamed letter to the editor, likely submitted by Mr. Westerveld, from the Sugar Loaf Historical Society.

They will, of course, not publish it, but I want to demonstrate that they are clearly in Mr. Westerveld’s corner by not doing so, and continuing to harm the public by sharing his disinformation and misinformation.

P.P.S. There is only one actual Sugar Loaf organization dedicated to preserving the hamlet’s rich history, and it is the Sugar Loaf Community Foundation.

When Will Alex Melchiorre Enforce The Law in Blooming Grove?

The next letter — sent to Blooming Grove Town Supervisor, Robert Jeroloman — is a behind the scenes look at a story we’ve been working on here at The Monroe Gazette for a number of months, involving the South Blooming Grove rogue helicopter, which you can read about here.

Pictured Above: Within minutes of the Monroe Village election ending, Deputy Clerk of South Blooming Grove, Isaac Ekstein, posted the above to the Village’s FB page.

Mr. Jeroloman,

I’ve had the chance to speak to representatives from the FAA. They stated that there is nothing prohibiting Alex Melchiorrie, your Chief of Police — until April 1st? — from enforcing state and local laws / codes that may be violated due to operation of the helicopter at 58 Fort Worth. A helicopter which was again present yesterday (March 22nd.)

So, I ran a search of some of the laws that could be violated by the operation of the helicopter, which residents claim is flying lower than allowable under FAA regulations and endangering their health and safety.

If it is the belief of the FAA that there is no prohibition on Mr. Melchiorre enforcing the following laws, perhaps you can explain why he has not charged Moshe Ostreicher (who owns the property) and George Kalaj (who may live at the property) with:

• Reckless endangerment in the second degree (Penal Law §120.20): class A misdemeanor — up to 1 year jail (or local sentence), fines. Charged when person recklessly creates substantial risk of physical injury to another (e.g., flying/landing near people or dwellings).

• Reckless endangerment in the first degree (Penal Law §120.25): class D felony — up to 7 years imprisonment, fines — requires depraved indifference and grave risk of death (applied rarely but possible for dangerous helicopter operations).

• Trespass, criminal nuisance, disorderly conduct or related local offenses: penalties range from violations to misdemeanors (fines and short jail terms) depending on statute.

Given that Mr. Melchiorre may become Mayor of Monroe, there is serious concern that he did NOT enforce these laws because of the electoral support provided to him by Moshe’s business associate, Isaac Ekstein.

If you’d like to respond, I hope you will do so before my deadline this week for this story, which is Thursday.

-BJ Mendelson

Is This Enough To Take to a Judge?

And finally, if you live in the Village of Monroe, here is a letter you can copy, paste, and send to the Monroe Village Clerk at clerk@villageofmonroe.org.

I can confirm it’s already been sent by a number of people, and the more who send it in the better.

We will have more on this story soon.

Date: _______ (Must be submitted before March 31st.)

To: Village Board Canvassers and Related Village Election Officials of Monroe, New York

Re: Formal Objection to Certification — Village Election held March 18, 2026 at Village Hall

I __________________________, a qualified voter and observer/challenger in the above‑referenced election, hereby object to certification of the results for the reasons below and request the relief set forth.

Background and Grounds for Objection

1. Unknown/unauthorized person present during count. During the canvass and count at Village Hall on March 18, 2026, an unidentified male was alleged to be present and attempted to view the counting area. He displayed identification indicating a role as a poll watcher; however, no one could identify him when asked by The Monroe Gazette to do so. The presence of the unknown man was shared with The Monroe Gazette via incumbent Mayor Neil Dwyer’s poll watcher, Maria May, Ph.d. Dr. May claims to have seen the man enter the building and attempt to watch the count. Dr. May saw the Clerk ask the man to provide proof of his credentials, which he reluctantly did. The man was then kept away from the counting area. But.

There is no documentation to verify his identity or authorization to be in or near the counting area to my knowledge. All because the man was said to have credentials does not mean they were legitimate credentials. For example, Mr. Isaac Ekstein, discussed below, may currently be driving around with out of date credentials concerning his business, Orange County Emergency Medical Services, Inc. d/b/a Blooming Grove EMS. An organization presently under NYS DOH investigation as confirmed by the Department of Health to The Monroe Gazette. Mr. Ekstein is also the subject of multiple lawsuits — including an active one with Orange County — involving claims of deceptive behavior and misrepresentation on his and the other defendants parts. See: The County of Orange v. CIOFFI 1, Inc. d/b/a CIOFFI Services et al. The unknown man identified himself as EMS, coming and going frequently according to Dr. May. Mr. Ekstein and Mr. Avrohm Flohr also work as EMS, suggesting a possible relationship and conneciton with both men.

The alleged presence of an unidentified person near the counting area raises serious concerns about the integrity of the canvass. Particularly if that individual turns out to be connected to Isaac Ekstein, who is under both a confirmed state investigation into voter fraud and voter coercion related to the most recent “election” in South Blooming Grove, and a rumored FBI investigation on that same matter.

Mr. Ekstein is also at the center of a confirmed investigation by the New York State Comptroller’s office involving financial irregularities at the Village. If Mr. Ekstein is using South Blooming Grove’s village money, for example, to fund Alex Melchiorre’s campaign is something that requires immediate investigation.

Mr. Isaac Ekstein and Joel Stern are publicly known to be contributing to a situation in the Village of Monroe involving the release of potentially dangerous gas at the children’s playground. According to News 12, Mr. Stern and Ekstein will not turn on the ANUE Water Technologies until Orange County drops the above named lawsuit. Given Mr. Ekstein and Mr. Melchiorre’s relationship — described in more detail below — how can Village residents reasonably expect their newly elected mayor to bring a potentially dangerous situation involving public health to a close?

2. Relevant misconduct, investigations, and potential undue influence. Individuals closely associated with the declared winner, Alex Melchiorre, including Isaac Ekstein, are subject to confirmed state and federal investigations and public reports alleging voter fraud, coercion, and other misconduct. On the night of March 18th, Mr. Ekstein, who serves as Deputy Village Clerk of South Blooming Grove, posted on social media within minutes of the final count being confirmed in Monroe, congratulating the Village on working with Alex Melchiorre as mayor. Leading many, myself included, to believe Mr. Ekstein is connected to the unidentified male present at the poll during the Village’s counting of votes.

Additionally, according to Dr. May, there was a large group of men present just outside the building throughout the evening peering in through every window, which Dr. May described as creepy and intimidating. Who were these men and why were they looking into every available window as voting took place?

Dr. May noted at least one instance where someone attempted to vote twice involving a woman who came once with a child, and later to vote again by herself. The unknown man was reported by Dr. May to allegedly be sharing the current vote counts with Mr. Melchiorre, which was then followed by a large rush prior to polls closing at 9pm. “I’m sure there were at least 80-90 people in the last hour” May told The Monroe Gazette. Going as far back as 1996, the Times-Herald Record has documented instances of people pretending to be other people in the Satmar community in order to win elections. In other words, if Mr. BJ Mendelson did not vote, someone would keep track of the voter roll of the Village of Monroe, and send someone else to vote as if they were BJ Mendelson. Whether or not the Village checked that people were who they said they were is unknown.

Given what happened in South Blooming Grove, I feel it’s of paramount importance that the sanctity of our vote be preserved here in Monroe, meaning this requires further investigation before the results of the election can be finalized.

Given the number of investigations into Mr. Ekstein, and his connections to persons who reportedly supported Mr. Melchiorre’s campaign — Lipa Deutsch and Avrohom Flohr — the presence of an unidentified person during the count, potential attempts at intimidation outside the building by a gang of men, combined with immediate post‑count public commentary, creates reasonable grounds to fear that unauthorized influence, intimidation, or improper coordination affected the voting, the canvass; and perhaps the signature gathering process as well.

Mr. Deutsch, for example, is alleged to have bribed former Town Supervisor, Tony Cardone, in order to advance the Monroe Commons project that Deutsch represented before the Town Planning Board. Did Mr. Deutsch pay off anyone who voted for Alex Melchiorre or signed the signature ballot for him, Mr. Mancuso, and Mrs. Pfeiffer?

Did the Village of Monroe, complete a check to confirm whether or not residents who signed Mr. Melchiorre’s ballot signatures reside in properties owned by either of these three men (Flohr, Deutsch, Ekstein) or their associates such as Joel Stern, Moche Halpern, and Lazer Schvimmer? Or that they are who they claimed to be?

Did the Village of Monroe make any effort to confirm that the people who signed these ballots actually exist?

In Halpern and Schvimmer’s case, alongside Mr. Ekstein in 2022, an attempt was made to register hundreds of absentee ballots to a single address in South Blooming Grove, which resulted in an Orange County District Attorney investigation. The OC DA confirmed turning over all 2022 election matters to the FBI for further investigation. Last year, the District Attorney’s office confirmed with The Monroe Gazette that the status of the FBI investigation into Mr. Ekstein, Schvimmer, and Halpern remains open.

Mr. Ekstein, and his associate Joel Stern, were accused by South Blooming Grove residents — according to Mr. Skoufis’s letter to the Attorney General – of only making sure their friends and associates voted, and not informing others, of a shambolic election held in South Blooming Grove in October of 2025. Did the same thing happen in Monroe?

Under Isaac Ekstein and Joel Stern, the Village of South Blooming Grove also “skipped” the March 2024 and March 2025 elections out of concern that they would lose their positions with the village, following a near defeat in the 2023 South Blooming Grove Village election.

Finally, Stern, and potentially Mr. Ekstein, factually, submitted ballot signatures obtained from yeshiva students at at least two locations that Stern claimed were residences. Those ballots have since been found to have numerous irregularities including non-existent people according to residents of South Blooming Grove.

To be clear: If the Village of Monroe cannot verify if the man at the Village Hall during the counting of ballots is connected to Isaac Ekstein, I am left with the belief that he very well could have been based on the South Blooming Grove Facebook post. The presence of the large group of men as well suggests a potential attempt at voter intimidation by Ekstein or people associated with him, which fits the pattern seen in South Blooming Grove of keeping away people Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein did not want to vote.

If so, given the active criminal investigations into Mr. Ekstein, there are many concerns here that must be addressed prior to certification of the election and Mr. Melchiorre taking office with Mr. Mancuso and Mrs. Pfeiffer.

3. Potential ineligibility and conflicts of interest. The declared winner, Alex Melchiorre, currently serves as Town Police Chief of Blooming Grove. Has he ever accepted any bribes or payments from Isaac Ekstein in order to look the other way on crimes committed by Ekstein and his associates? (For examples, see below.)

In the case of Mr. Melchiorre serving as mayor, can the public be assured that Mr. Deutsch won’t bribe Mr. Melchiorrie in the same way Mr. Deutsch claims to have bribed former Town Supervisor Cardone?

There is also a substantial question as to whether simultaneous service as Town Police Chief in Blooming Grove and Village Mayor in neighboring Monroe would create an impermissible conflict of interest or render Melchiorre ineligible under applicable law and the doctrine of incompatible offices. Has the Village of Monroe requested a legal opinion from the New York State Attorney General Office’s Public Integrity Bureau?

I note here that Mr. Melchiorre has a history of holding incompatible positions, including the time he served as both the Village of Monroe Police Chief and Village of Tuxedo Park Police Chief, until he was forced to resign from Tuxedo Park. Melchiorre, according to the Times Herald Record, was asked to resign only after it became clear that he intended to acquire a third simultaneous position, as chief of the Blooming Grove police.

There is also a history of behavioral problems. For example: It is my impression that the Town of Monroe has asked the Town of Blooming Grove to investigate potential illicit behavior by Melchiorrie concerning his illegal storage of hundreds of rounds of ammunition at the Town Senior Center. (This was reported by News 12.)

During an unknown period of time, Mr. Melchiorrie used the Monroe Senior Center — located near the boundary of the Village — as his personal storage shed. Mr. Melchiorrie, or someone working with him, also adjusted the security cameras in the Senior Center area used as his personal storage for unknown purposes. Can Mr. Melchiorrie serve as mayor if he is under an investigation by the Town of Blooming Grove, or other parties, that could lead to criminal charges before the District Attorney? Mr. Melchiorrie arguably endangered the lives of numerous Monroe residents for a significant period of time by improperly storing his ammunition next to flammable material. Is Mr. Melchiorrie mentally competent to serve as mayor given his illicit storage of weaponry, in a senior center, right next to flammable substances?

The Town of Blooming Grove, when asked this week, declined to answer questions from The Monroe Gazette concerning whether or not they would ask Mr. Melchiorre to resign as police chief now that he was elected Mayor in Monroe. Thus far, they also have not explained Melchiorre’s lack of enforcement of the law beyond statements claiming it’s up to the FAA to act by Supervisor Jeroloman made to The Monroe Gazette.

Mr. Melchiorre, during his time as Police Chief in Blooming Grove, has demonstrated repeatedly an inability, or unwillingness, to enforce the law against Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein. This is the point we raised about the ANUE Water Technologies System. How can we expect Mr. Melchiorrie to resolve a potentially hazardous situation threatening the public after his continued and demonstrated rolling over for Mr. Ekstein?

For just one example, according to both News 12 and The Monroe Gazette, an illegal helipad is operated at 58 Fort Worth Place in the Village of South Blooming Grove. The FAA has stated publicly they had no awareness of the construction of the helipad, which is required under federal law. An FAA spokesperson told The Monroe Gazette that, despite this, there is no prohibition preventing local police, such as the Town of Blooming Grove, to enforce local and state laws relevant to the illegal operation of a helicopter — one reported by residents to often be flying far lower than federal regulations allow over a residential neighborhood.

Why hasn’t Mr. Melchiorrie taken action against Mr. Ekstein’s business associate over the continued operation of the helicopter. One that was spotted as recently March 22nd by South Blooming Grove residents.

58 Fort Worth is owned by a business associate — confirmed via court filings — of Isaac Ekstein, named Moshe Ostreicher. The following are just some of the laws Mr. Melchiorre could have enforced, at the repeated request of South Blooming Grove and Blooming Grove residents, that he has thus far refused to do so:

• Reckless endangerment in the second degree (Penal Law §120.20): class A misdemeanor — up to 1 year jail (or local sentence), fines. Charged when person recklessly creates substantial risk of physical injury to another (e.g., flying/landing near people or dwellings).

• Reckless endangerment in the first degree (Penal Law §120.25): class D felony — up to 7 years imprisonment, fines — requires depraved indifference and grave risk of death (applied rarely but possible for dangerous helicopter operations).

• Trespass, criminal nuisance, disorderly conduct or related local offenses: penalties range from violations to misdemeanors (fines and short jail terms) depending on statute.

Instead of taking any action at all, Mr. Melchiorre has instructed Town Police to refer callers to the FAA directly, despite the FAA stating nothing on their end prohibits Mr. Melchiorre from enforcing the laws in his local jurisdiction.

In addition, concerning conflicts of interest:

Public reports concerning Melchiorre’s relationships with former Town Supervisor, Tony Cardone, give rise to a reasonable basis to seek a legal determination of eligibility before certification.

In or around March of 2025, Melchiorre was hired by the Town of Monroe to perform confidential negotiations with the Village of Monroe and Orange County Sheriff’s department concerning police coverage of the Town of Monroe. This role provided Melchiorre with intimate details on the operations of the Village Police, the Village, its budget, and position concerning any public employee contracts that would be impacted by expansion of Village Police coverage into the Town.

Mr. Melchiorre, during his time working on behalf of the Town, assisted in the Town’s frequently documented attempts at disinformation, which were detrimental to the reputation of the Village and Village Police he wishes to now serve.

At no point, for example, did Mr. Melchiorre publicly rebut any of the factual misinformation and disinformation spread by Tony Cardone and former Town Board member Dorey Houle at multiple Town meetings concerning the positions of the Village of Monroe. Again demonstrating Mr. Melchiorrie has no interest in serving his constituents.

Mr. Melchiorre has also indicated that he will not proceed with expanding the coverage of Village Police into the Town, despite wide-spread support by both Town and Village residents. This was confirmed by The Monroe Gazette via a source close to the Town of Monroe Board, familiar with Melchiorre’s position.

Meaning, that despite being elected to the position of mayor, Mr. Melchiorre intends to continue maintaining the position of the Town of Monroe’s former supervisor, Tony Cardone, and not the majority of the constituents of the Village. I feel this is an obvious conflict of interest.

4. Lack of transparent campaign financing. There is no publicly available disclosure identifying who funded Mr. Melchiorre’s campaign advertising, including a Photo‑News advertisement, road signs, and other election collateral. If persons under investigation, such as Mr. Ekstein, or otherwise impermissible sources funded campaign materials, such funding could constitute unlawful coordination or undisclosed contributions that affected the election.

Legal basis and statutory demands

-Pursuant to New York Election Law §§ 16‑104 and 16‑110 (canvass and certification procedures), I formally object to certification and request immediate suspension of certification and a supervised recanvass/recount.

-I request that all chain‑of‑custody records, ballot custody logs, poll books, and observer/sign‑in logs as required by N.Y. Election Law § 17‑126 be produced, as well as related record keeping provisions (see also N.Y. Election Law § 8‑100 et seq.).

-The presence of an unidentified individual near the counting area, attempting to observe the counting area, appears to contravene rules governing poll watchers and unauthorized persons under N.Y. Election Law § 17‑130

-On the basis of N.Y. Public Officers Law § 73 and the common‑law doctrine prohibiting incompatible offices, I request a determination whether Mr. Melchiorre’s simultaneous service as Town Police Chief of Blooming Grove renders him ineligible to hold the office of Village Mayor in Monroe, as well as whether the lack of enforcement of the law against Isaac Ekstein’s business associate, Moshe Ostreicher, as well as Mr. Melchiorre’s prior work on behalf of the Town of Monroe concerning the Village Police expansion project, and his current adoption of the former Town Supervisor — and not the Village’s — position against that expansion, also renders him ineligible.

-Please preserve and produce all documents responsive to Election Law Article 14 campaign‑finance disclosure requirements, including payor information for advertising and signage.

-If certification is not stayed, I demand preservation of rights to initiate an election contest or seek expedited judicial relief under N.Y. Election Law § 16‑116 and CPLR Article 78. I expressly reserve all other administrative and judicial remedies available under New York law.

Relief requested

A. Immediate suspension of certification of the election results pending investigation and resolution of the matters alleged herein (N.Y. Election Law §§ 16‑104, 16‑110).

B. Production, within 48 hours, of:

1. Identification of all persons present in the counting area, including job title and affiliation;

2. All chain‑of‑custody records, ballot custody logs, poll books, and any sign‑in or observer logs for the canvass (N.Y. Election Law § 17‑126; § 8‑100 et seq.);

3. Any video or photographic recordings of the counting/canvass area;

4. Copies of any communications, including emails or written authorizations, that permitted non‑official individuals to be present during the count (N.Y. Election Law § 17‑130 and local rules).

C. A supervised re-canvass or recount conducted in a secure location with properly credentialed observers and prior notice to all parties (N.Y. Election Law §§ 16‑104, 16‑110).

D. Preservation and expedited production of documents and records related to campaign expenditures and financing for Alex Melchiorre’s campaign, including receipts, invoices, and payor information for Photo‑News advertising, signage, and other campaign collateral (Election Law Article 14).

E. If necessary, initiation of prompt judicial proceedings to determine (i) whether illegal conduct occurred that affected the election results, and (ii) whether Mr. Melchiorre is legally eligible to serve as Mayor; until those issues are resolved, certification should be stayed and the presumed winner restrained from taking office (N.Y. Election Law § 16‑116; CPLR Article 78).

Service and contact

Please serve all notices, communications, and produced documents to:

[Your Name]

[Address]

[Phone]

[Email]

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of New York that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.

[Signature]

[Printed Name]

Date: (Put the date here. Must be sent before March 31st)

Cc: Orange County Board of Elections: elections@orangecountygov.com

New York State Board of Elections Division of Enforcement: enforcement@elections.ny.gov

News 12 Blaise Gomez: bdgomez@news12.com

Mid-Hudson News: statewidenews@gmail.com

Note: I expressly reserve all rights to supplement this objection with additional facts, evidence, and legal claims as appropriate.

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