Nobody Counts In South Blooming Grove
An update on the helicopter situation, the phantom South Blooming Grove village election, and the inaction of "Our Protector," Letitia James.
Pictured Above: There is a lot to praise about the work of New York State Attorney General Letitia James when it comes to standing up to the Trump Regime. However, for residents of South Blooming Grove, the inaction by her office has cost them a representative form of government for three years in a row.
It’s not a good look to allow a fraudulent election to go unaddressed by James’s office, especially with a potential election crisis looming this November when the Trump regime will likely claim the midterms are rigged and illegitimate.
Faith in government starts at home, and in the words of Letitia James herself, “No one is above the law.” Fascism thrives when trust in institutions is non existent. So how can Letitia James tell us “no one is above the law” and that our election results will be safe when there’s already evidence that they’re not?
If the law is God, then in America, God is dead.
If you’re a resident of the Village of South Blooming Grove, you could argue that God has been dead for a while.
As of this writing, New York State Senator James G. Skoufis has all but forgotten you, not mentioning any updates on his “investigation” into the phantom October 2025 village election.
Neither has “Our Protector,” as Governor Kathy Hochul recently referred to her at the start of her 2026 State of the State address, New York State Attorney General Letitia James. James’s office told the press, following a letter from Skoufis and the New York State Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee, that her office was looking into the phantom election.
We followed up with the attorney general’s press team multiple times about South Blooming Grove in recent weeks, but received no response. It’s also worth noting that Skoufis received a $5,000 donation from Moshe Ostreicher, a pal of Joel Stern, just weeks after Stern and Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein’s scheme to hold the phantom election was put into place.
Ostreicher is the man who purchased Village Mayor George Kalaj’s former residence at 58 Fort Worth Place for 890% of its property value through an LLC associated with Sheri Torah Inc. A company that operates several local yeshivas and has been in court with the previous South Blooming Grove administration prior to the arrival of Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein. Whether George Kalaj still resides at 58 Fort Worth is unclear, but residents continue to keep an eye on the home, reporting that there is no activity to speak of.
On a recent visit by The Monroe Gazette, we found the blinds open, no cars in the driveway, and zero evidence that anyone had been there recently. When we called Mayor George Kalaj on his personal cell phone, shortly after a helicopter took off on his property, he stated that he wasn’t home and that he was only aware of the helicopter based on what he read in the news and on social media. Those aren’t exactly the words of a man who lives in that home. One would think a helicopter taking off and landing on your property would be something a homeowner would take an interest in.
So, yes. 58 Fort Worth Place is the property with the illegal helipad, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and it is also at the center of several lawsuits involving “The Mangin Bypass.” A shortcut between the neighboring Village of Kiryas Joel and South Blooming Grove. This proposed short cut passes through property not far from 58 Fort Worth Place and potentially also owned by Ostreicher and his associates through a series of LLCs.
One of the LLCs owns the home next door to Town of Monroe resident, Javier Dam, who’s home is regularly shaking because of the takeoff and landing of the helicopter. The new Town of Monroe administration has reached out to the Village of South Blooming Grove regarding the helicopter but has not received a reply as of this writing.
Pictured Above: Video taken by Mr. Javier Dam on January 6th, 2026 at 3:58pm as the helicopter at 58 Fort Worth Place prepared to take off. The Village of South Blooming Grove, as confirmed by their Planning Board Attorney Dan Kraushaar, never approved a helipad at this address. Multiple calls to Fusco Engineering & Land Surveying, the company run by Al Fusco Jr. that provides village engineering and code enforcement services, have not been returned concerning the helipad. Mayor George Kalaj, who claims to live at 58 Fort Worth claims to be completely unaware of the helicopter. Which is hard to believe. The sound of the helicopter starting up was described by Mr. Dam as, “Unbearable.”
Mr. Dam and other SBG and Blooming Grove residents have filed complaints with Congressman Pat Ryan’s office. The Town of Blooming Grove Supervisor, Robert Jeroloman, has also called and confirmed with the FAA that an investigation is ongoing. We have Part 2 of our coverage on the helicopter coming soon, Part 1 can be found here. Below, you can see the helicopter take off.
Ostreicher testified in court as part of Orange County’s ongoing lawsuit against the Village of South Blooming Grove that he is close with Mr. Joel Stern. If you’re just joining us here at The Monroe Gazette, Joel Stern, on paper, is a village employee for South Blooming Grove, but has repeatedly referred to himself as “Village Executive” in documents obtained by The Monroe Gazette via FOIL to Orange County Emergency Services, and is identified in the Satmar community as the “Co-Mayor” of South Blooming Grove alongside Isaac Ekstein.
Both men’s tenure as village employees officially ended in 2024, but they continue to wield power over the village government due to ongoing inaction by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. This amounts to a rolling, ongoing white-collar crime spree, allowed by the Attorney General’s inaction, touching multiple issues and state agencies—from the Department of Transportation (DOT), where Stern and Ekstein attempted to create an illegal turning lane on State Route 208, to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), where Stern and Ekstein claimed they could take care of endangered timber rattlesnakes as part of a permitting process involving Stern’s current or former boss, Jacob Gold — Gold is a large shareholder in a mega development, Clovewood, that Stern and Ekstein rammed through Village approval process that is also the subject of an ongoing lawsuit — to the Department of Health, where Stern and Ekstein were running, and may still be running, a fake version of the better-known Blooming Grove Volunteer Ambulance, complete with identical colors and names on their vehicles.
(This fake ambulance company is now part of a larger investigation by the New York State Department of Health involving the helicopter, as its owner, Joel Landau, may be claiming that flights to and from the Village of South Blooming Grove are undertaken under the auspices of medical emergencies.)
This white-collar crime spree started in January 2021 when Stern and Ekstein were first appointed to their roles by a man they barely knew and whom they “hired” to be the mayor, George Kalaj. (Joel Stern, Isaac Ekstein, George Kalaj, and Joel Landau have not replied to repeated requests for comments on these and related matters. Joel Stern was recorded by The Monroe Gazette saying to us that he would only answer our questions if we became residents of South Blooming Grove who pay taxes.
The Monroe Gazette has confirmed that multiple state agencies, and at least one federal agency, are currently investigating Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein’s activities. And we haven’t even mentioned the saga of the New York State Comptroller’s office and their attempt to keep out of the public eye an ongoing audit of South Blooming Grove that began in March of 2024 and was supposed to end in June 2025. The Comptroller’s office recently confirmed that the audit is still ongoing and told The Monroe Gazette that Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli won’t speak on the issue of why the newsletter has never mentioned South Blooming Grove for nearly two years.
Ostreicher’s testimony, by the way, comes from a different lawsuit than the one Orange County recently won against Joel Stern and company. In that now victorious case, South Blooming Grove attempted to take land from Orange County’s Gonzaga Park through an illegal eminent domain procedure overseen by Nora M. Murphy and Laura Gulfo at Monaco Cooper Lamme and Carr PLLC. In this eminent domain lawsuit, Orange County successfully ensured that no future attempts by South Blooming Grove or neighboring Kiryas Joel can be made to take any part of Gonzaga Park for the purpose of creating the long-desired “Mangin Bypass.”
The other lawsuit involving Gonzaga Park, where Ostreicher testified, could require South Blooming Grove to repair the damage they did to the park if won by Orange County. Despite testimony from Stern about his close relationship with Hochul and her director of Jewish Affairs, Jacob Adler — as well as discussions with her team about the park — the governor’s office has not commented on the ongoing Gonzaga Park lawsuits. Nor have they commented on the phantom election. Mr. Adler has also not commented regarding the lawsuits and the phantom election. Governor Kathy Hochul, as we mentioned in our last article, delayed for over a year our FOIL request concerning South Blooming Grove, only for her office to state that they would not be releasing any communications with Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein, neither through their official village channels nor unofficial channels such as with the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove, because it could interfere with ongoing government business.
Despite knowledge of the electoral shenanigans in South Blooming Grove dating back to the FBI investigation started in 2022 — triggered by Isaac Ekstein, Lazer Schvimmer, and potentially also Moche Halpen requesting hundreds of absentee ballots to one single address — State Senator Skoufis only utilized the power of the Committee this one time, in November of 2025, and only after the phantom election was held. (Skoufis and Ekstein routinely text each other, according to Ekstein himself. Skoufis alleges he recorded or otherwise documented Ekstein admitting to the phantom election but has not provided any recording or audio to substantiate his claim. For that reason, we have submitted a FOIL request with the New York State Attorney General’s office requesting all documents sent to them from Skoufis and others as part of their investigation into South Blooming Grove.)
The Monroe Gazette is currently in court with the Village of South Blooming Grove over the 2024 village election that they “skipped.” New FOIL requests we’ve filed concerning the phantom 2025 election have also received sketchy 90-day blanket notices regarding how long it will take South Blooming Grove to respond to them, and we have no doubt they will attempt to extend and delay as long as possible. This has been their tactic for two years and resulted in our first lawsuit against the Village, which we won. We can demonstrate that this maneuvering is sketchy, because for other FOIL requests submitted to South Blooming Grove, we’ve been told it would only take 20 days to recover those records. (In court, South Blooming Grove claims they keep track of their FOILs through a FOIL log, despite The Monroe Gazette having a recording of Village Clerk Kerry Dougherty stating that she does not keep a log, and a previous FOIL request confirming that the village does not keep a log.)
On February 3rd, 2026, if we have not heard any public statements from Letitia James concerning South Blooming Grove, we will be partnering with South Blooming Grove residents to file a second lawsuit against her, compelling James to intervene regarding the phantom election and overturn its results. This would allow the 3,000-plus village residents who didn’t get a chance to vote to actually do so. Mrs. James was previously sued in court over her failure to intervene in the “skipped” 2024 March election and the “skipped” 2025 March election.
Given the chaos just around the corner concerning the national election this November, you’d think Letitia James would want to send a message to all New Yorkers that nobody is above the law and that we have free and fair elections here in the State of New York. But as I’ve said, God is dead. In America, there is no law anymore. You cannot have a functional legal system where the law is arbitrarily applied, or in the case of the Trump regime, used as a weapon against their enemies.
As Michael Connelly the author and creator of Detective Harry Bosch, put it through his famous character, “Either everyone counts, or nobody counts.” As of this writing, nobody counts. Not in Donald Trump’s America. Not in Letitia James’s and Kathy Hochul’s New York State. And not in South Blooming Grove.