Sneak Preview: Quid Pro Quo’s are illegal

South Blooming Grove's Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein are a little too comfortable breaking the law, and maybe Woodbury Public Library Board President Cathy Schmidt is too.

Here’s what’s coming up in August at The Monroe Gazette:

Tomorrow’s Town Board Meeting & South Blooming Grove

-Tomorrow (Monday, August 4th at 7pm) is a Town of Monroe Board meeting that I think you should attend. I want people to see how Tax Hike Tony is going to waste your time and money between now and Election Day.

Basically, he, Dorey Houle, and Sal Scancarello are going to do as little as possible, and use the rest of their meetings to attack political enemies and platform their corrupt friends running for re-election, like Orange Couty Legislator Peter Tuohy. You can expect the same thing to happen over in the Town of Woodbury with the Luciani-Calore Regieme.

I’ll be at this Town of Monroe meeting too.

Specifically to address what I suspect will be more false claims by Tuohy — also attending tomorrow’s meeting — concerning the potentially dangerous hydrogen sulfide situation in the Village of Monroe.

While the hydrogen sulfide situation dates back to the early ‘90s, in recent years it’s been made far worse by South Blooming Grove’s two un-elected co-mayors, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein.

Mr. Stern and Ekstein were presented with a solution to the problem multiple times since taking over the Village in 2021. They even budgeted and approved $360,000 to address the problem (see below), and now they refuse to solve the problem unless … Well, you’re going to have to go to the meeting to hear the rest of that story.

What’s important to know is that, as recently as this month (July), Peter Tuohy has been covering for Stern and Ekstein.

Specifically by repeatedly saying at Orange County Sewer District 1 Advisory Committee meetings — all of which are available on YouTube — “We can’t know what their intentions are” concerning South Blooming Grove and why they wont install the ANUE hardware that they budgeted $360,000 to pay for in 2024.

Tuohy’s comments come despite numerous witnesses who were told explicitly by Stern and Ekstein — whom Tuohy met with earlier this year — what their reason is for not installing the Anue Water Technologies system.

Hint: Quid Pro Quo’s are illegal in New York State.

More Podcasts, Fewer Posts

-This week, I’m going to share with you three podcast interviews. The first is the one with Indivisible Hurley / Indivisible Woodstock’s Zahava Wilson, who joined me to talk about this awesome upcoming event:

The second will be with For The Many’s Political Director, Brahvan Ranga.

And the third will be the super long one that I’ve been editing, with Roy Smith, his fiance Diana, and Amy Lavine. (Amy, by way of disclosure, represented The Monroe Gazette in its first lawsuit against South Blooming Grove, and will likely represent us in the second one too. Amy is also involved with a lawsuit against The Village of South Blooming Grove over its illegal use of eminent domain. Something that’s worth paying attention to because of this:

August 19th, 2025, at 8:10pm over at Village Hall, South Blooming Grove is looking to use eminent domain again, this time to take land purportedly to be owned by Orange County.

After next week, my hope is to do one long Monroe Gazette post and one, short, podcast episode on a weekly basis. Until we can hire another reporter.

That’s because I’ve been collecting documents on some big projects, and it’s time to start closing those down and taking action.

The First Big Project

The first big project is the investigation into persistent allegations from Woodbury residents that Woodbury Public Library Board President, Cathy Schmidt, and other members of that Board, have been using taxpayer money as their personal slush fund. Mrs. Schmidt FINALLY decided to reply to one of our inquiries, but didn’t do much to convince Woodbury residents of her innocence:

Mrs. Cathy Schmidt proceeded to say she HAS answered these questions, but provided no documentation or evidence to demonstrate this. Nor has the Library itself, creating the impression that Mrs. Schmidt is speaking on behalf of the Woodbury Public Library, and is authorized to do so, every time she makes a trolling or gaslighting remark on Facebook. Mrs. Schmidt repeatedly insinuated that we’re lying and spreading false information.

At that point we said that if Mrs. Cathy Schmidt thinks we’ve published false information about her, which she sure does, that she should sue us for libel.

She immediately, and predictably, started coming up with excuses not to sue us.

I bet you’re as shocked as we are.

What’s important here is that Mrs. Schmidt has not provided any information, besides gaslighting claims to the contrary, to refute the charges of verbally assaulting a pregnant Town employee — something caught on camera — and having to be physically restrained from assaulting a local resident. Something that was eye witnessed by the entire Woodbury Town Board.

These Facebook Posts may seem silly, but pay attention to them, because Mrs. Schmidt doesn’t realize that she just stepped in it. Making demonstrably false claims, while representing the Woodbury Public Library, particularly about allegations of physical violence and misappropriating taxpayer money is something the Department of Education cares very much about.

(To say nothing of the constant gaslighting and trolling that Woodbury residents routinely screenshot and save. It’s easy to forget that Library Board members are subject to the same kind of laws other Public Officials are, but they too can be removed from office for bad behavior. So too, can library employees who may have knowledge of the alleged financial mismanagement, and proceeded to cover it up. We believe that, if the allegations are proven true, then every single employee and Board member who was involved, or helped to cover it up, should be fired.)

So tomorrow (Monday) we’re going to be putting in a pretty massive FOIL to find out whether or not the Woodbury Public Library has ever authorized Mrs. Schmidt to provide answers to these questions, and if so, what those answers are. If it turns out she’s lying, well …

Let’s just say you’re going to want to circle the Woodbury Public Library Board meeting on Tuesday, August 26th, at 5:30pm at the Rushmore Memorial Branch on your calendars.

Given Mrs. Schmidt’s factual history of violent outbursts, we’ve requested the Woodbury Police to be there too.

Why Does This Matter?

I just want to close by saying: If you feel overwhelmed with what’s happening nationally, there’s a lot you can do locally.

You can join Hands Off Hudson Valley’s twice a month Saturday protests on Lake Street in the Village of Monroe.

You can join your local Woodbury Library Board and, if you get a lot of your friends and family to join, replace the people who may be abusing taxpayer money.

You can run for office in South Blooming Grove.

You can file Pro Se lawsuits against bad actors like Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein.

You can protest outside Monroe, Woodbury, and South Blooming Grove Board meetings.

You can document what’s happening in your community using FOIL and publish your findings.

You can call Speaker Heastie in the Assembly and demand he bring the New York For All Act and the New York Health Act to the floor for a vote next year.

You can call Congressman Pat Ryan’s office every time he tells you he’s going to fight for you, while simultaneously voting YES on the Genius Act and YES on bills like this one that allow Private Equity firms to continue to take advantage of people.

That’s why stuff like the Woodbury Public Library matters. If you want things to change, it starts here at home. And there’s a lot to do.

Because right now, we need to strengthen or civic institutions (like the library) and our local governments during a time where you can’t count on the federal government for anything.