Democratic Elite Demand Poor Voters Fund Campaign
The OCDC fundraising strategy reveals uncomfortable truths about Democratic priorities in Orange County.
Pictured above: A sign spotted in Goshen promoting Bernie Rivers's campaign for Orange County Sheriff against ICE-friendly incumbent Paul Arteta.
On Monday, I shared with you this email from Orange County Democratic Committee Chair, Zak Constantine. If you missed it, you can read the whole email here.
What I wanted to do today—because there wasn’t much news coming out of this week’s Village of Monroe Board meeting, included below—was talk about the biggest problem involving Constantine’s email.
This is because it ties back to our larger theme here at The Monroe Gazette that America is an oligarchy, not a representative democracy.
Proof of this can be found in South Blooming Grove, where a verifiable conspiracy to subvert the vote of the non-Satmar community has been happening since at least 2023.
Despite being made fully aware of the situation, neither Governor Kathy Hochul nor Attorney General Letitia James have intervened. James, despite writing for The Nation’s most recent issue about how important election integrity is, has been aware of the situation since at least 2024—and was even sued over it—so she and her office can’t claim ignorance.
Nor can they claim ignorance of other voter irregularities involving the Satmar and Skverer in Rockland County and Sullivan County in places like Bethel.
For someone making a whole lot of noise about election integrity, Letitia James has repeatedly demonstrated that she doesn’t actually give a shit. Despite speeches like this one:
She is a hypocrite, and we’re going to make sure everyone in New York State knows it.
And, as I mentioned before, we’re going to build the federal case against South Blooming Grove right here at the Gazette.
I just need to clear my head from the release of How to Protect Yourself From Fascists & Weirdos, which you can read for free here. Mentally, it’s like jumping from one moving train to another.
So. Let’s get back to Constantine’s email after a quick word about this week’s Monroe Village Board meeting.
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June 29 Monroe Village Board Meeting
Here’s the footage from this week’s Village Board meeting held last night on June 29. In it, a Wild Paul Phelan appears to ask questions about his water district—again demonstrating why Phelan was an awful primary challenger to Beth Stephens and Luis Rivera for the Monroe Town Board—he seems to only cares about himself.
Interestingly, nobody decided to run for the open Monroe Town Board seat this Fall beyond Rick Colon, who previously served on the Town Board back in the Harley Doles days. I’m sure the former United Monroe people are going to be THRILLED about that. They’ve already been present at multiple Town Board meetings with their thinly veiled racism and other loud, pointless nonsense.
Imagine for a moment if Paul Phelan had put the amount of time and energy he clearly puts into the local water district as he does questioning why the current Monroe Town Board still restricts public comment to three minutes. Then-Councilperson Richardson loudly complained about the time limit before she became Supervisor, yet the policy remains in place six months after she took over the Board.
Why?
That’s just one example of something Phelan could helpfully point out. If you want to help your friends and neighbors in the Monroe community, that’s the first place I’d start. Remove the three-minute time limit that Richardson claims to have hated, and also remove the new three-minute time limit Melchiorrie introduced recently at Village meetings. Despite the fact that attendance for Monroe Village Board meetings rarely rivals a Mets game in 2026.
Corrupt, and soon to be unemployed, Police Chief Alex Melchiorrie says nothing about his firing over in Blooming Grove, nor does the Village Attorney or other Board members ask if any of the Town of Blooming Grove’s investigations into Melchiorrie may disqualify him from holding the office of Mayor.
One would think suddenly losing your day job as police chief amid multiple claims of corruption would call someone’s ability to be mayor into question, but hey, it’s the week of a vacation. So nobody’s digging too deep.
Not yet anyway.
But! There is a Drone and Fireworks show in the Village this Friday, July 3. There’s a street festival, and the Mighty Spectrum Band will perform from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m followed by the show. We recommend you go. Just stay hydrated. The heat will kill you if you don’t.
So, About That Email
I was going to write this really long thing, but we’re actually at our new word count limit for the daily posts, so let me be blunt and brief with you:
As you know, Zak Constantine is a flunkie for State Senator Skoufis. There’s no way he’s the Chair without Skoufis. So when we talk about election strategy for the Orange County Democratic Committee, the decisions made by Constantine have to be viewed within that context.
So let’s compare Zak pitting Orange County Democratic Committee members against each other to fundraise compared to Skoufis’s recent fundraising activity since January.
Since January, Skoufis raised over $1.3 million, according to New York State Board of Elections records.
By way of comparison, the average salary right now in America is about $65,000. So, since January, Skoufis has raised more than the annual average salary for 20 of you reading this.
Among Skoufis’s largest contributions this year: $3,600 from Blue Arch Equities LLC, a mysterious limited liability company registered with the New York Department of State to an address in the Village of Kiryas Joel at 51 Forest Road.
Another significant donor was Steven Karvellas, who contributed $5,000 on Jan. 2. Karvellas is a convicted felon who has admitted to engaging in fraud, according to reporting by CNBC. Based on Skoufis’s active engagement with convicted felon Timothy J. Mitts in the 2024 State Senate campaign, Mr. Skoufis seems to be big on working with criminals.
Skoufis, claiming to be a “populist”—or man of the people—has not explained what benefit Karvellas—or Blue Arch Equities—received in return for these large financial contributions.
Meanwhile, Orange County Democratic Committee Chair Zak Constantine sent an email to committee members on Tuesday, June 16 at 9:11 p.m., urging them to compete in a fundraising drive for sheriff candidate Bernie Rivers. The incentive: complimentary tickets to the committee’s annual summer picnic on July 11. Constantine framed this as urgent, saying in the email: “Bernie needs the financial resources to compete at the top of the ticket this year.”
No question Bernie Rivers will need financial resources. And to be clear, we encourage you to support and donate to his campaign against Arteta.
But … Does Mr. Rivers need our financial resources when Money Bags Skoufis has raised nearly eight million dollars?
Last year, Skoufis demonstrated exactly where his priorities lie. He directed at least $20,000 to support Brandon Calore, the MAGA mayoral candidate in Woodbury, according to State Board of Elections records.
So you mean to tell us, Zak Constantine, that Money Bags Skoufis has $20k+ to burn on a MAGA mayoral candidate—one he supported in order to aid the Village of Kiryas Joel’s ACE Farm annexation request and other future development—but he has NO money for Bernie Rivers?
And for that reason, you want us—including 1/3 of Americans currently skipping meals to pay for medication—to fund this campaign on our own?
Is it because Mr. Rivers is black? I mean, just by looking at Skoufis, he and his staff look like the kind of Democrats who say all the right things in public, but are probably a little too comfortable using the n-word in private.
Skoufis’s lack of, well … ANYTHING when it came to ICE wanting to set up a concentration camp in Chester, their secret office in New Windsor, and the rumor of another detention center being built in Orange County lends that suggestion more credibility than you think.
Or maybe that’s it. Maybe Skoufis won’t support Rivers like he did Brandon Calore because Skoufis doesn’t care about ICE, which is going to be THE issue for the Rivers campaign to bang the drum on.
Or maybe it’s as simple as this: The Oligarchs don’t care about who your sheriff is, because there’s no money to be made.
Therefore, the suckers and losers—the 99.9% of Americans who aren’t oligarchs—have to foot the bill. All while Mr. Skoufis counts his monopoly money and his best friend forever cries poverty.
That doesn’t seem right to us. And it hopefully doesn’t seem right to you either.