Brian Nugent Doesn't Want To Look at Tony Cardone's Internet Porn
An in depth, and deeply cranky, look at local news happening in the Towns of Woodbury, Monroe, and the Village of South Blooming Grove.
(Note to paid subscribers: The audio edition of this post is forthcoming.)
Well, this has been quite the week, hasn’t it?
It was the final meeting of tinpot dictator Tony Cardone’s reign of terror in the Town of Monroe, complete with his weird friends. Like anti-vaxxer and former New York State Assembly candidate Tom Lapolla. United Monroe’s Mike Egan, father of Palm Tree, was there too, with both men making veiled threats to the incoming Town Board and supervisor while talking about how great Tony is. I guess when you’re already denying the power of vaccines, this isn’t much of a stretch.
Starting January 1, your Monroe Town Board will consist of Maureen Richardson as supervisor, with Beth Stephens, Luis Rivera, and Sal Scancarello as Town Board members. There is one seat open, vacated by Councilwoman Richardson. For those asking, The Walking Penis’s term in office doesn’t end until 2027. So, you’re stuck with Sal for a while, unless … I’m getting ahead of myself.
For the record, no, I’m not the one being appointed to the open Town Board position. I saw convicted felon Tim Mitts put out that evil into the world, in a since-deleted Facebook post, and it’s not true. There was a discussion way back in February of me running with Councilwoman Maureen Richardson, but State Senator James G. Skoufis then proceeded to call everyone he could, and scream at them. He threatened to primary Maureen — which he proceeded to do anyway — and allegedly threatened to cut off all state funding to the Town of Monroe. So, I didn’t run with Councilwoman Richardson. You got Luis and Beth instead, and honestly, I think you’ve got a great team. They’re inheriting a mess. You better believe Ol’ Tony had the paper shredder going just after midnight on Election Day. Stuff’s going to be missing. Contracts not signed. Apes hanging off the rafters. Maybe a giraffe inside the Town Clerks office. Just fucking madness. Those three are easily going to spend a year eating shit just to right this ship. All the while, people like Alex “Nice Toes” Rivera (aka “Zee Roe"), Convicted Felon Tim Mitts and his 200 sock puppet accounts, and those weird Facebook Racists you got on the Monroe Democratic Committee complain. “Why aren’t you cleaning up the mess of the guy we kept in office for a decade faster?!” “Why are taxes going up? We thought it was ok to spend all of the money in the Reserve fund, during a national emergency, where federal funding for things like FEMA don’t exist anymore.”
Given that the Town of Monroe will likely need State Senator Skoufis, or Congressman Pat Ryan, or both, to help fund the expansion of the Village Police to allow it to properly patrol the Town of Monroe, putting me on the Town Board now would cause yet another Skoufis temper tantrum.
I don’t want the people of Monroe to suffer because of James G. Skoufis’s little-dick energy. Because that dude will absolutely hold the residents of this Town hostage just to get to me.
And as far as Congressman AIPAC Ryan goes, you should see the big amount of doe ($354,000) he just got for South Blooming Grove “Village Executive” Joel Stern’s playtime fire department, as reported by Joel Stern himself. (The article is in Yiddish, so use the Google Translate app on your phone to read it.)
You mean to tell me, assuming Russell Vought doesn’t have his way with blocking federal dollars to “Blue States,” Pat Ryan can’t chip in funding for the expansion of the Village of Monroe police force?
Really?
Then again, Pat Ryan did just vote on a resolution condemning “socialism” despite the fact that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are all examples of … Yup. You got it. Socialism. I did call Pat Ryan’s office and asked his people if he even read the bill — it’s clear he didn’t — before he voted on it.
As it is, people in New York State are going to suffer because of Skoufis. You see, Governor Kathy Hochul refuses to sign any bill into law that James G. Skoufis is responsible for.
So, Skoufis has now allegedly threatened people, including his fellow assemblymembers and senators, to not to introduce similar legislation — like a new version of his vetoed FOIL bill — vowing to halt any progress on this and other legislation. That’s the kind of guy you’re dealing with right now as your State Senator. If he can’t put his name on it, he doesn’t want the legislation to pass.
Unless of course, it’s that unconstitutional ban on masks he was trying to ram through as part of the New York State budgeting process this year. You remember that one, don’t you? During a year where America was taken over by a fascist regime? The man who ran to run the Democratic National Committee wanted to make it harder to protest.
On my end, there’s only one elected position I’m interested in, and that’s one that allows me to fight for, and help pass, the New York Health Act. So maybe Mr. Skoufis should consider that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
But let’s get back on topic …
Mike Egan also reached deep into United Monroe’s old hateful bag of tricks and claimed “the Jews” (not in those words) came out to vote for Maureen. This isn’t statistically or factually borne out by any reality whatsoever. Especially given that Richardson blew out Cardone in virtually every Monroe district. This includes Mr. Cardone’s own neighborhood, which Egan may still live in.
Which districts were the Jewish districts were not specified by Mr. Egan. Monroe isn’t like Woodbury. In Woodbury, you can say District 3, 5, and 8 (Highland Lake Estates, WP3, and County Crossing) are majority Satmar neighborhoods. That is something mathematically and factually true.
I’m guessing based on Egan’s comments that it’s probably any district he doesn’t live in. (Actually, he’s probably referring to Smith Farm, which is half in the Village and half in the Town, and under construction by the same schmuck who owns the majority of Clovewood’s Keen Equities LLC: Ziggy Brach. That’s right. One of Joel Stern’s alleged employers is building another major housing development over by the Shoprite. But wait, it gets better.
Because if you go back to 2023, you may recall New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter to the Village of Monroe about a proposed local law. They, smartly, ignored her. For the most part. The thing is, this letter didn’t just happen magically.
You see, at the same time the Village of Monroe got this letter, it was also in court with Ziggy Brach (as BMG Monroe I LLC.) See: BMG Monroe I, LLC v Village of Monroe Zoning Board of Appeals. Ziggy Brach was represented by Whiteman Osterman & Hanna. (Yes. Those guys again.) Two months after James’s letter, the Judge ruled against Brach. If you’re starting to guess why Attorney General Letitia James hasn’t taken action yet against Joel Stern, who is working on behalf of Ziggy Brach’s Clovewood development among other entities, boy are you going to like next week’s story.
Monroe residents who are still angry about the deal that created the Town of Palm Tree should remember that it’s Mike Egan’s fault, and everything he says should be taken with the same level of credibility given to statements made by Tony Cardone: None at all. I guess Mike Egan didn’t get the memo that, thanks to the November 5, 2025, election, United Monroe is dead. Like a lot of the decrepit Boomers holding onto power in the national Democratic party — or our sleepy, senile 79-year-old Republican president — it’s time to hand over the keys to the next generation and ride off into the sunset, Mike.
Speaking of dead political careers, Dorey Ghoul — not a typo — cried a whole bunch, which reminded me of watching a spoiled child having their toys taken away from them. Well, maybe Dorey, if you actually did something besides run for State Senate and spend the Town’s money like a drunken sailor, people would have voted for you again. But you did nothing for both the Village and the Town in the entirety of your time in office, and this is what you got.
And just a reminder to Monroe Gazette readers: Dear Dead Dorey has still not handed over her notes from those public hearings concerning the Sheriff’s Department. Brian Nugent, the Town Attorney who quit before his ass could be fired, did his best to stifle and delay that and other FOIL requests submitted well before the election. Mr. Nugent routinely bills the Town of Monroe at a rate at or around $11,000 a month. This includes for the onerous task of opening each and every email he receives. Cardone called hiring Nugent one of the best things he ever did at the December 1 meeting, so that should tell you everything you need to know about Brian Nugent.
The bad news for Dorey Ghoul and Tony Cardone is that The Monroe Gazette fully intends to press and get those FOIL requests fulfilled under the new administration, and we fully intend to write about all of them.
So if you’ve ever wanted to know what weird boomer porn Tony Cardone was watching at work, instead of working as your Town Supervisor, rest assured we are going to make sure that request is no longer obstructed.
We put the FOIL request in for Cardone’s Internet browsing history well before the election; we were told we would have the files promptly, and it’s now months later with still no results. You know what that means, right? Brian Nugent didn’t want to sit there and go through years of Tony Cardone’s Internet porn. Seriously. Because under the law, Nugent would have to go and review everything Tony Cardone did at his computer before releasing it to the public, in the event there was any private or confidential information contained therein.
So instead, Nugent and the Town of Monroe intentionally delayed the FOIL, and now Nugent is saying it’s going to be up to the next Town attorney to complete the process that he and the Town had months to complete. Of the many things I’m going to include in my letter to the State of New York Grievance Committee for the Ninth Judicial District (which covers Orange County), BoomerGate is at or near the top of the list.
The public also has the right to know whether or not Mr. Cardone was embezzling money from the Town, and if he was, that he be brought up on charges and made to pay all of that money back. You see, Mr. Cardone thinks he’s going to pull a Bob Valentine in Chester and sit around and wait for the next election to run again, so that Cardone can get that pension he was just denied. And he’s going to wait until the current incoming board has to raise taxes just to fix the heavy financial damage he did to this Town, so that he can run around and say, “Maureen raised your taxes! She’s the new Harley Doles!”
I don’t know what my plans are past November of 2026 with The Monroe Gazette, but no matter what it is or where I am, I will drop what I’m doing and make sure Tony Cardone and his weird friends never come within spitting distance of power in the Town of Monroe (or Village of Monroe. More on the upcoming Village of Monroe election in future posts. We plan to write about it extensively. For example, why is there no Democrat or Independent candidate? Will we see a write-in upset because so few people vote in the Village election? What happens if Tony’s friend Alex Melchiorre becomes Mayor and doesn’t want to work with the Town of Monroe to expand the police presence just out of spite?
Don’t put it past these people. They have nothing else.
And just a reminder, like United Monroe, Harley Doles is dead.
The man can’t defend himself, and if anyone lived up to the negative reputation that Harley Doles had — whether fair or not — it’s absolutely Tony Cardone.
Think about it. Let’s pretend for a second that every negative thing United Monroe said about Harley Doles was true: that he worked for the real estate developers and not the people. Well, Tony Cardone has been accused by multiple real estate developers of demanding bribes in order to advance their projects, which may include the Monroe Commons on Nininger Road. Every time someone complaints about the development on Nininger Road, on the Town of Monroe side, they should be reminded that Tony Cardone made that all possible, and he may have been bribed to do so.
United Monroe also claimed the Harley Doles Town Board was rude and disrespectful. Well, Tony Cardone limited public comment to three minutes, if he had it at all (he’s canceled it more than a few times just to silence people), and he repeatedly bullied, harassed, interrupted, and gaslit every single resident — except yours truly — during his near-decade of inept corruption. I did, for the record, get interrupted, but as he found out, that wasn’t a very effective tactic. They’re still so mad about my appearance that Poo Gas Peter (Peter Tuohy) mentioned it in his farewell to Cardone at the December 1 Town Board meeting.
Why yes, Peter, I did get up to take three swings at Tony Cardone at a single meeting. He, like you, covered up a potentially poisonous gas impacting a children’s playground for half a decade. That kind of thing deserves scorn and strict scrutiny, don’t you think?
Well, if not, don’t worry, Poo Gas Peter. I firmly believe you only won your election because of a lot of confusion over the new district lines for county legislator. There were plenty of people who wanted to vote for Maria May only to learn, upon getting their ballot, that she wasn’t there. Sorry Mario, your Princess is in Another Castle.
I’m hopeful Mrs. May runs again, and that this time the seemingly useless Orange County Democratic Committee actually puts some time, effort, and energy into her and other local races. I still can’t believe, in a year that saw a Blue Tsunami across America, where Democrats were elected to positions that they normally wouldn’t win, that County Executive Steve Neuhaus, District Attorney David M. Hoovler, and Orange County Legislator Peter Tuohy were re-elected. That’s nobody’s fault by the local Democratic party. Put Zak Constantine in a catapult and send his ass to Mars.
Anyway, Harley Doles was accused by United Monroe of using Town resources, like the SUV, for his own purposes. Well, wouldn’t you know it, at his very last meeting, Tony Cardone again reimbursed himself for travel expenses to and from WTBQ. That alone could add up to thousands by the time a thorough accounting is done during his tenure in office.
So let’s play a fun game. Let’s ask Supervisor Elect Richardson to add up how much Tony Cardone helped himself with Town money, to travel to and from WTBQ, and let’s see if it adds up to how much Harley Doles spent on the Harley Mobile.
Harley Doles was called a compulsive liar; well, just look at that video Cardone put out defending his 2026 budget as just the latest example of how often Cardone compulsively lied. You can also look at his cry baby letter to the Editor in the December 5 edition of The Photo-News. Seriously. This man was the beneficiary of so much favorable coverage, and had any negative coverage suppressed or outright removed by publisher Jean Straus, and now he’s saying The Photo-News is biased against him.
We also reached out to Highway Superintendent, Bill Brown, to fact check Mr. Cardone’s claims in the letter. That said, it’s worth pointing out here that Cardone opened the Town of Monroe up to a PERB (Public Employment Relations Board) complaint because of retaliatory action he previously took against Brown. Not to mention allowing the now former Highway Superintendent, James “Pat” Patterson to work for Peckham Industries while maintaining his job as Highway Supervisor. So I don’t know if Tony’s the guy to be telling anyone the truth about what goes on in the Highway Department. After all, he’s alleged to have helped cover up for a sexual harasser (Patterson.)
Another example: Cardone keeps saying the Village made him a “take it or leave it” offer concerning the Police IMA. This is something Dorey Ghoul also repeated. It’s simply not true. Something Village Trustee Debbie Behringer could have brought up at the two Town Board meetings she attended and where she spoke during public comment, but she didn’t do so, instead praising Houle and Cardone at the December 1 meeting. If Debbie is looking to inspire some excitement and enthusiasm for the upcoming Village election, she’s sure doing a bang up job.
So, the “new Harley Doles” turned out to be Tony Cardone all along.
This serves as a good reminder that whenever the MAGA people tell you something about their opponent, it’s always something they themselves are actually doing. “Maureen is the new Harley Doles” should translate in your brain into “Tony Cardone was worse than Harley Doles.” Or better still, “Better to be the new Harley Doles than the old Tony Cardone.”
One more example: Harley Doles liked to call the police on people. So too, does Tony Cardone. To cap off the week that was in Monroe, Tony Cardone again called the police on Supervisor Elect Councilwoman Maureen Richardson, this time for her attempting to attend an IMA discussion between the Village and Town involving the use of the Village Police Department. A discussion that Cardone, Houle, and Sal Scancarello torpedoed when they decided to defund the police. Any money that would have been put toward the potential $2.1 million IMA between the Village and Town was slashed from the budget. Despite the fact that this is something the Town residents have unanimously said they want. Maybe Dorey and Tony should have given the people what they wanted, and they would have gotten re-elected. Instead, in order to bolster the political chances of their friend, Alessio “Alex“ Melchiorre for Village Mayor, Tony and Dorey were too busy dragging the process out and undermining it at every turn. That’s why even now, after they lost the election, they’re still saying the Village’s offer was “take it or leave it.” I fully expect these two to be involved with the Village Election, and we should get ready after the Holidays to shut that shit down.
For the record, the $2.1M figure is the amount proposed by the Village of Monroe to provide the Town of Monroe with 10 officers, 4 cars, and to cover the additional expenses associated with that added police protection. The goal being that the cost will reduce over time as the Village of Monroe Police Department integrates the Town of Monroe into its coverage area.
Sal Scancarello Remains.
Monroe residents are encouraged to bang the drum and demand Sal Scancarello resign for this monstrous 2026 budget. One that will likely have to result in taxes being raised just to fix the black hole Houle, Scancarello, and Cardone chucked this Town into. Any increase in taxes should hereby be named the Scancarello Tax.
Consider this:
There’s no money for the police.
There’s no money to provide around-the-clock EMS coverage to our elderly residents.
There’s little money for senior services and the parks department.
Most everything else was intentionally cut to the bone to prevent the best and brightest available from working for our town.
This is Tony Cardone, Dorey Houle, and Sal Scancarello’s legacy. They own it, and there should be consequences for it.
Those consequences should include the resignation of Sal Scancarello.
You can email Sal Scancarello at sscancarello@townofmonroeny.gov or call (845) 637-5615 and demand he resign.
Every single day that Sal Scancarello remains in office, he should be reminded that he owns the 2026 budget and bears the full weight and responsibility of any consequences that come from it, like the Scancarello Tax.
And if he doesn’t resign, you better believe the person who runs against him is going to bang that drum night and day when his term is up in 2027. Supervisor Richardson isn’t responsible for raising your taxes, but Sal Scancarello sure is.
Get a Load At This Waterhead in Woodbury
Meanwhile, over in Woodbury, after calling every Woodbury resident anti-Semitic for questioning what happens in South Blooming Grove — and then refusing to apologize for it when faced with actual evidence of crime — Mrs. Rhonda Fabbro was rewarded with a last-minute job by outgoing Supervisor Kathryn Luciani at a Town Board meeting.
Isn’t that nice?
You can discriminate and make hateful comments toward an entire town and village’s population, thousands of people, and if your friends on the Town Board—Brandon Calore and Kathryn Luciani in this case—want to give you a job, they can just give you a job.
And now Town of Woodbury residents are on the hook for giving Mrs. Fabbro even more money than they were before. All while she holds them in contempt and helps to run candidates who work on behalf of real estate developers like Wayne Corts. That’s a sweet deal if you ask me.
By the way, Rhonda Fabbro and Willa Freiband’s Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats have still not shared with the New York State Board of Elections if they received any campaign contributions, or made any expenditures, since January 2025. So not only does Mrs. Fabbro dislike the people that she serves, she’s also actively breaking New York State election law.
How much does Mrs. Fabbro hold the people of Woodbury in contempt, so much that her response to our reporting was this:
Did you catch that?
If not, check out that fifth paragraph. “The mayor is paying salaries over $100K without documentation provided to the public.” Yup. Her response is, “It’s no big deal. Everything is above board, just like it is over in South Blooming Grove. Hey, did you hear about this thing I totally made up just now about the mayor?!” There is, like Mike Egan’s insinuation of “Jewish districts” voting for Councilwoman Maureen Richardson, absolutely no basis in any reality for Mrs. Fabbro’s comment here.
I’m pretty sure if we had a bunch of people on the village payroll making over $100,000 without documentation, it would have been brought up by Mrs. Fabbro’s chinless incel of a son, outgoing Village Trustee Matthew Fabbro. But it wasn’t. Not even once while Mrs. Fabbro’s special little boy was running for re-election. And Fabbro and (James) Freiband were telling some whoppers while out on the campaign trail.
You mean to tell me you sat on this “bombshell” for the moment your friends got caught with some good old fashioned political patronage? Supervisor Luciani did not clarify if this job was posted, or if anyone else was interviewed for the position, by the way.
Can’t imagine why she lost her re-election campaign …
Now, listen, I don’t know what the future holds for the new Town Board majority in Woodbury, but I hope they take a look at the Town’s Code of Ethics and give their new Ethics Board some teeth. If Kathryn Luciani can demand an employee be fired; and force a department head to make that firing over comments on social media that were negative about the Supervisor … Then you have to believe that calling every single Woodbury resident anti-Semitic—perhaps in an attempt to entangle the Village in a future lawsuit with Whiteman Osterman and Hanna on behalf of Kiryas Joel — should be grounds for termination. Especially Since Kiryas Joel may be the actual owner of the ACE Farm property currently up for annexation.
(Note that the ACE Farm property owner was reported many years ago by the Times-Herald Record as belonging to Vaad Hakiryah, which is the land-owning arm of the main congregation that essentially operates the Village of Kiryas Joel. Whether or not that remains the case is unclear.)
Whiteman Osterman and Hanna LLP — Yup. Them again — is the law firm that likes to file specious lawsuits on the grounds of anti-Semitism, claiming that their clients represent the entire Orthodox Jewish community, which they most certainly do not. This is an old political trick utilized by Hanhalla. One to make their numbers appear bigger than they are, in order to get politicians to listen to them. There are over 30 different kinds of our Haredi brothers and sisters. They don’t all get along, and if you ask any of our Orthodox friends, they’ll be the first to tell you they’re not Haredi. (Go back and look at Letitia James’s letter now and see what language she used. If you do, you’ll see she used Whiteman Osterman and Hanna’s.)
And like I mentioned earlier, this is the law firm that represented South Blooming Grove’s “Village Executive” Joel Stern on a number of occasions and most recently claimed that everyone in Washingtonville was anti-Semitic. That’s what makes Rhonda Fabbro’s comments so troubling. Because throughout his entire time on the Village Board, fellow Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats member James Freiband often attempted to do the same thing: try to entangle the Village of Woodbury in lawsuits, starting way back with the New York State Thruway Authority and continuing to the present concerning the annexation requests before the board involving Kiryas Joel.
Currently, Whiteman Osterman and Hanna LLP is in court on behalf of the Village of Kiryas Joel in a case against the Monroe-Woodbury School District and the Town of Woodbury (see: Village of Kiryas Joel vs. Assessor, Town of Woodbury et al).
If that law firm sounds familiar to Woodbury residents, that’s also because the Woodbury Public Library, and Rhonda’s best friend, Cathy Schmidt, hired them as part of the Library’s attempt to cover up an incident of harassment done by Schmidt involving Town Board member-elect Martha Lopez. This is one of many factually verifiable instances of poor behavior by the Woodbury Library Board president that Kathryn Luciani and Brandon Calore failed to act upon.
Speaking of the Woodbury Public Library...
Woodbury residents, not to be outdone on the horrific 2026 budget front, the Town of Woodbury is raising your taxes on the grounds—partially—that the library needs your help to stay open.
However, a close inspection of the library budget reveals some definite red flags that require either investigation by the New York State Comptroller, or a brave Woodbury resident willing to step forward and sue them for financial malpractice.
If you know of such a Woodbury resident who wants to sue the library, and help shed some light on their financial improprieties, let me know. The Monroe Gazette can only sue them over the illegal FOIL arrangement the library has with the Town of Woodbury. We don’t have the standing to sue them over their budget specifically.
As we’ve said before, libraries are the first line of defense for democracy and the last refuge for those who need it most. So to have an evil library board president using the taxpayers’ money as a potential slush fund, instead of serving the community, is something that needs to be remedied at the soonest possible opportunity. That is not how libraries should work, and there should be consequences for those who want to give all libraries a bad name.
One last thing on the Woodbury front …
Yes, the recount happened for the mayoral race yesterday (12/4), but at the time of this writing, we don’t yet have the results. What we do know is that, instead of pulling a Kelly Rinaldi, who vanished as soon as she was defeated in November’s election and is probably hiding under MAGA Tom’s bed until we forget she exists, the current loser of the mayoral race, Brandon Calore, is not taking it well.
Which, I guess, is par for the course for a far-right MAGA bigot, but it’s still hilarious to see. First, he’s been mumbling about suing everyone and anyone he can for saying he’s a far-right MAGA bigot. But when you tell the mother of a local teenager and his friend, who come to your door for a fundraiser, to “get that n***** off my lawn” and threaten to murder someone for not liking Trump enough, the bowling shoe fits, Brando. And that’s before we get into Mr. Calore’s employment with CIOFFI, a company currently in court with Orange County over allegations that, at the behest of “Village Executive” Joel Stern in South Blooming Grove, illegally cleared a path in county owned Gonzaga Park. When CIOFFI was sued by the Village of Woodbury over an unrelated manner, Calore laughed when he was accused by residents of providing inside information to CIOFFI using his position as a Town Board member. I hope the new Town Board investigates this.
Calore, like Rhonda Fabbro’s Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats, has also not reported any financial contributions or expenditures related to his quixotic bid to become the Mayor of Woodbury since July. He also refuses to acknowledge the $19,600 State Senator James G. Skoufis spent to support Calore’s campaign via Skoufis’s Protect Monroe-Woodbury Independent Expenditure Committee. A committee funded by $22,000 from Wolf Wercberger, Project Manager at Elite Concrete who has a checkered legal history, $2,500 from Douglas Land, who is listed as an Investment Banking executive for The Chesapeake Group, and $10,000 from Jacob Weiser, who is listed as an associate Kurzman Eisenberg Corbin & Lever LLP. Skoufis’s other Pac, Skoufis for New York also donated $2,000.
During the November 20 Town of Woodbury Board meeting, Calore complained that donations and participation were down at the Annual Orange County Polar Plunge event. The one thing he constantly hypes at nearly every meeting—in fact, it’s one of the very few things he ever bothers to say at these meetings when he’s not trying to find ways to harass Beautification Committee Chair Maria Hunter— because of rumors and allegations that the Earl Resevoir may be contaminated via a leaking septic system at the Animal Shelter. Something both Calore and Luciani knew about during their tenure on the Town Board, despite statements to the contrary from both.
The current situation involving the Res is still unclear. Town Supervisor Luciani claimed to contact a number of departments across New York State. FOIL requests returned to The Monroe Gazette indicated that statement was false. We reached out to the Special Olympics's Susanne O’Neil, Director of Development, to fact check Mr. Calore’s statements. As far as the public should know, at this time, there is no threat to their health and safety at the Res according to engineers working on behalf of the Town of Woodbury.
No Word About South Blooming Grove?
What you see above, my friends, is proof of fraud. Nobody lives at 17 Sleepy Hollow. It’s a Yeshiva.
Keep an eye on News 12 this weekend. They’re going to feature this document.
It comes from a FOIL request the Monroe Gazette received on Tuesday of this week. We are currently going through some of the other documents sent to us by the Village of South Blooming Grove and reviewing some of their other claims. For example, they’re saying there are no records of emails sent by Joel Stern about the election wherein he uses his Gmail account. As you know, that’s not true because Stern purchased an ad for the village election with the Wallkill Valley Times using his Gmail account. The village also claims there’s no security camera footage available for the day of the election. We totally called that one too.
Of course, then again… why would you need footage when you hold the election at Joel Stern’s Blooming Realty office instead of the firehouse?
That’s up next. Like I said, I need to review what we have. Early next week will be our next SBG post.
Before you go…
You may have noticed we have a new section here at the Monroe Gazette called MWNews. MWNews is a separate newsletter where we’re going to run 600-word or less straight news stories (no opinion, no swearing) that are closer to what you see in the Photo-News. But without the slanted BS that comes with your typical Photo-News or Straus newspaper story.
MWNews will cover the towns of Warwick, Tuxedo, Chester, Blooming Grove, Monroe, Woodbury, and Palm Tree. Right now, I’m finishing up a book, so you won’t see it update daily, but as I finish the book, you can expect frequent posts throughout the week over in that section. That newsletter will eventually allow me to move a lot of the local news stuff into that section so that I can use this section for the bigger stories: South Blooming Grove, Orange County Jail and ICE, Orange County Sewer District 1, Swan in the Lake over in Sullivan, Mike Lawler and Pat Ryan’s re-election campaigns, etc. I’ve also got requests from people who want me to tell the entire South Blooming Grove story from the beginning, starting with the murder of Marvin Greene all the way through to Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein (hopefully) being charged in federal court.
With Cardone and Luciani gone, and the threat of Calore as mayor temporarily abated, I’m hopeful there will be way less that I need to cover in terms of local news.
While we’re talking about new features, I also want to direct your attention to the Notes tab. Over there, you’ll see short posts on items that I’m working on.
For example, State Senator Skoufis’s letter to Attorney General Letitia James, which we’re going to get to at length next week.
Nope, don’t let Skoufis get away with that. He may not have rigged the October 2025 election, but he absolutely knew about the pattern of voter fraud, and benefited from it, and did nothing for years.
Stern and Ekstein are two of his largest individual donors, ranking in the top 25 all-time in terms of Skoufis’s financial contributions from individuals, and he’s now taking credit—again—for other people’s work.
The first time he did this was with the comptroller, where he claimed to SBG residents that his office was responsible for getting the comptroller to investigate SBG. This isn’t true. The NYS comptroller was first notified of irregularities involving Stern and Ekstein starting in 2021 by former village trustee Sue Ann Vogelsburg. I know because I have all the emails she sent to the comptroller’s office. The comptroller only began an actual audit in March 2024 during the time when Stern and Ekstein created a scheme to charge all SBG residents for a second garbage pickup. The comptroller’s office confirmed to the Monroe Gazette that as of December 2025, that audit is still ongoing. They did not provide a date for completion. They also did not explain why the South Blooming Grove Village audit has never appeared in their regularly scheduled email newsletter during the entire time that the audit was underway, unlike the multitude of municipalities, libraries, school boards, and other organizations the comptroller routinely announces they are investigating. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli declined to be interviewed about the issues with South Blooming Grove when asked.
The other thing is Skoufis taking credit for getting the Village of South Blooming Grove to put up the missing meeting minutes and agendas since May. That’s flat out wrong. The Monroe Gazette sent a letter, via our attorney, telling the Village it had to post the minutes or else face an OML lawsuit, which predates his alleged request for an investigation. They put the minutes up not long after.
We understand that Mr. Skoufis suffers from LDE, but we’re not going to let him think he can Jedi mind trick people into thinking he’s been active on this whole South Blooming Grove situation by taking credit for our work.
We’re also not going to let Mr. Skoufis skate on the following question: If he can use his powers as Chair of the Investigations and Government Operations just like that, why didn’t he use it in 2022 with the FBI investigation? Or in 2024 or 2025 with the missing elections he was well aware of. Or the various issues involving the Village and the Clovewood property. Or the Gonzaga Park situation. The list goes on.
So color us unimpressed over his sudden enthusiasm while people in South Blooming Grove have had to swallow brown drinking water, for years, because Skoufis wanted to wait for an election year to appear useful.