South Blooming Grove Allegedly Fabricates Meeting Minutes to Hide Election Fraud

Alleged phantom meetings and last-minute minutes suggest South Blooming Grove officials may have moved the village election to Oct. 22, 2025, without proper public notice or required documentation.

Pictured Above: Disgraced Clarkstown justice-turned South Blooming Grove village attorney Scott Ugell, took time out of his busy schedule of doing nothing for his $75,000-a-year job with the village to hang out with old friend, Congressman Mike Lawler, this Summer.

Mr. Ugell, according to “Village Executive” Joel Stern, is said to have informed Mr. Stern that the Village of South Blooming Grove could move its elections to October 2025 from March 2026, pending a public referendum.

Something tells me that, at the end of this South Blooming Grove story, it’s not going to be Joel Stern and Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein that go to jail — just look at the sweetheart deal Shalom Lamm got for conspiracy to corrupt the electoral process — but it’s going to be people like Ugell and village clerk Kerry Dougherty.

In Ugell’s case, the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct told The Monroe Gazette that if Ugell faces criminal charges, it would likely reopen its own investigation into him that was closed when Ugell resigned from the bench in Rockland County.

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Howdy.

I know. The Monroe Gazette is supposed to be on vacation until Dec. 2. But…

Tomorrow (Monday, Nov. 24, 2025) we were supposed to file a lawsuit against the Village of South Blooming Grove over violations of New York State’s Open Meetings Law.

Until this weekend, there were no meeting minutes available on the website since May 2025.

This includes the June 2025 meetings where Joel Stern and Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein claim there was a referendum held to move the village election from March 2026 to Oct. 2025, and where the Village Board voted to move the election to Oct. 22, 2025.

If you look at the June 2025 agendas (found here for June 9th and here for June 23rd), there was no mention of a referendum to change the date of the village election, nor was there any mention of the need to change the date of the election at all.

In fact, both Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein, according to meeting minutes now posted for June 23rd’s regularly scheduled Village meeting, were absent.

One would think, if a referendum was held to change the date and time of the village election, one or both would have been present at the regularly scheduled meeting to inform the public of this change.

For the record, the Village of South Blooming Grove holds its meetings on Monday evenings at 8 p.m. I know because I sometimes go to them.

But wouldn’t you know it, just a day before our lawsuit, meeting minutes for two phantom meetings have just appeared on the Village of South Blooming Grove website.

The first is for Tuesday, June 10, at 5 p.m. — a meeting that is not mentioned at all on the June 9, 2025, agenda. The Monroe Gazette has placed a FOIL request for security-camera footage for this alleged meeting and asked the Town of Blooming Grove Police Department whether it was asked to attend, which is now standard practice for South Blooming Grove meetings despite attendance usually being close to zero.

These new meeting notes are filed by … wait for it … Isaac Ekstein. Yes. The man under active FBI investigation for potential voter fraud involving a place he resided in, 2 Arlington Drive. You’ll also notice also that the formatting for these minutes is completely different from those filed by Village Clerk Kerry Dougherty.

For the record, yes. The FBI is calling back South Blooming Grove residents who have contacted them about the election fraud. They’ve also called me back for the first time in months. I intend to speak with the agent soon. Directions on how to report the South Blooming Grove situation to the FBI can be found here.

And yes, Mr. Ekstein was appointed village deputy clerk by “Mayor” George Kalaj, who claimed on video that he appointed Ekstein deputy village clerk “a few months ago.” A few months back from October is July, not June.

There is also no documentation anywhere to be found so far indicating Mr. Ekstein’s position as deputy clerk is official and that he’s signed all the appropriate paperwork to serve in that role.

You’ll also notice that, of all the other meeting minutes now posted on the South Blooming Grove website, Ekstein is noted as being absent from virtually every meeting except the June 10th and June 24th meetings, and only the June 10th and June 24th meeting minutes are formatted in a completely different way from how Village Clerk Kerry Dougherty does them.

This new June 10 meeting minutes, which you can find here, now claims Stern received requests from unnamed village residents to move the date of the election. No reason is given as to why these residents wanted the election changed.

But here’s what we do know. The Metadata for both the phantom June 10th meeting minutes? Take a good look at where it says Createdate below.

October 28th. Four days after the illegal election was held in October. A day after The Monroe Gazette came to Village Hall to speak to Kerry about the elections.

You know what you see above? Evidence from the metadata that Village Clerk Kerry Dougherty created meeting minutes for the June 24th meeting on November 20th, 2025. So if you’re guessing these two meeting minutes for June 10th and June 24th could be fake, you’re not alone.

As readers will recall, the actual reason Joel Stern wanted to move up the election is because of growing dissatisfaction among the Haredi community of Stern and friends only giving permits, and other favorable treatment on behalf of the Village, to Mr. Avraham Ber Jacobowitz (sometimes spelled Avrohom Ber Jakobovitc).

Mr. Jacobowitz is claimed to be the primary funder of Stern’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove operations and has been part of the scheme to convert the Village of South Blooming Grove into a city to rival Kiryas Joel. And of course, both the Haredi and secular community do not regularly have clean drinking water available. And the secular community has no responsive village government to speak of. So, the knives were out for Mr. Stern on all sides. (A new coalition has formed to replace Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein when or if free and fair elections are ever held again in this village.)

At least one of Mr. Jacobowitz’s properties may also be involved in voter fraud at 20 Shannon Lane.

Scott Ugell’s Pizza Party

Scott Ugell is alleged to have said to Stern he could move the date of the election if the board votes to do so.

But …

Pictured Above: The same week that Stern is alleged to have spoken to Ugell about the election time change, and when this alleged Tuesday meeting happened, Scott Ugell was down in Rockland busily promoting the opening of a restaurant he co-owns called Mangia Pizza in New City. If you look at Mr. Ugell’s Facebook profile, you can find tons of pictures throughout that week of him at Mangia’s. So whether or not Scott Ugell was actually at this Tuesday, June 10, meeting held at 5 p.m. is unknown.

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Back To The Meeting

Ekstein, according to the minutes, claims there have been a series of lapses with the Times Herald-Record in terms of public notice. He gives no examples. Nor does he mention why he waited until this meeting, one he actually attended, to bring up those concerns and not the regularly scheduled meeting held the night before. (Ekstein, for example, was present at the May 19th meeting. Why not bring up the issue with the Record then?)

Note that Stern and Ekstein constantly do this. If you go back through the videos from Preserve Blooming Grove of previous meetings, Joel Stern is always blaming the “shortcomings of previous administrations” and pretty much anyone and everything but himself for the multitude of crises and other situations facing South Blooming Grove, such as the municipal water infrastructure crisis under investigation by the federal EPA, which Stern denies is happening. The Monroe Gazette has a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request in with the federal EPA for all documentation related to South Blooming Grove. The federal EPA has also confirmed twice now that an investigation into South Blooming Grove remains open.

At this June 10th phantom meeting, Ekstein says he wants a system that is better at publishing notices instead of manually sending email. This is important because Stern, you guessed it, manually sends an email from his Gmail account to the Mid-Hudson Valley Times to publish the fake election notice. Why Mr. Stern chose to use his personal email, and presumably his own money, to pay for the election announcement remains unknown.

(Reader Note: Mid-Hudson Valley Times / Wallkill Valley Times are sometimes used interchangeably and refers to the group of newspapers published by the The Times Hudson Valley Media.)

Tuesday, June 10th

Then a resolution is passed — unanimously, of course — by George Kalaj and the village board to name the Wallkill Valley Times the “second additional newspaper for the Village of South Blooming Grove.” Whether or not George Kalaj was actually at this meeting is unknown. Again, it’s not clear this meeting itself actually happened, which is why the Monroe Gazette is asking for the security-camera footage.

Next, the Village Board allegedly votes to change the date of the election, subject to a public referendum, from March 2026 to October 2025.

The public referendum, allegedly, was held on June 23, 2025, between 12 p.m. and 9 p.m. The location is not provided. The referendum was also never noticed to the public. No emails were sent. No texts. There is no public advertisement for the referendum.

And as you might have guessed, none of these documents that are required to be sent to the Department of State are actually sent and filed with the department of state. We know this as fact because we have all of the laws filed with the Department of State from the Village of South Blooming Grove through October 31st, 2025.

But that’s not the best part. The best part is this:

Joel Stern, “village executive” — and head of the ersatz RSBM Party — and Shmaya Spitzer are appointed election inspectors for this public referendum to be held at a place nobody knows.

Mr. Spitzer is one of Mr. Stern’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove flunkies. His address listed in the Orange County real property database, when you look up 329 Lake Shore Drive, is actually 971 Route 45 Ste. 116, Pomona, N.Y. 10970. So it’s possible Mr. Spitzer resides in both places, but someone might want to see where he’s registered to actually vote. That seems to be a problem with properties related to Mr. Stern’s endeavors.

Mr. Spitzer is also on the village ZBA committee, which hasn’t held a single meeting in 2025.

Why do you need a ZBA when you just grant permits, or give the go ahead for construction projects, to your friends, right?

A half hour later, this phantom meeting is brought to a close.

And then, on June 24th …

There’s yet another Tuesday-night meeting alleged to have been held, this one on June 24. And again, one that’s not referenced on the actual agenda from the evening before’s actual meeting.

It’s also worth, once again, noting that Ekstein and Stern were both absent from the June 23 regularly scheduled meeting. So one would think they’d want to bring up this referendum and its results during a regularly scheduled meeting, and not this phantom one scheduled for 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night, right?

And let’s not forget, the Special Referendum on June 23rd? It included at the same time as the Village’s regularly scheduled meeting, and there is NO MENTION OF IT AT ALL.

“Mayor” George Kalaj is also not at this Tuesday meeting, which isn’t unusual because he’s rarely at these Village meetings to begin with.

You’ll notice Ekstein, still identified as deputy clerk even though it’s not clear if that’s true, says the referendum was a success. He does not give any totals. Ekstein would only later provide this information to the Orange County Board of Elections the week of the sham election on October 22nd. The Monroe Gazette has put in a FOIL request for all votes, documentation, and other records concerning this phantom referendum.

At this meeting, no minutes or details are provided concerning the “brief discussion” about moving the election to October.

And again, Spitzer and Stern are appointed election inspectors, despite the fact that all three candidates supposedly on the ballot for the Oct. 22 election are on Joel Stern’s political party, RSBM (RSMB stands for Rabbi Shaya Ben Moshe).

20 minutes later, the alleged meeting was brought to a close.

So, that’s where we’re at. Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein are currently in Cover Your Ass mode. The FBI is making calls. Letitia James considers sitting on her ass and doing nothing, which will absolutely result in yet another lawsuit against her concerning South Blooming Grove — more on that later.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Pat Ryan’s press representatives have refused to reply to multiple requests for comment on this story. Orange County’s Board of Elections is deferring all questions to Village Clerk Kerry Dougherty, who — more than a month later — has still not replied to our questions concerning this election.

And State Sen. Skoufis, who claims to be “investigating” the matter? According to Isaac Ekstein himself — in text messages provided to The Monroe Gazette — Skoufis isn’t mad that this sham election in South Blooming Grove happened. He’s mad no one gave him the heads up about it.

Your friends at The Monroe Gazette are now going to go back on vacation until December 3rd. Unless, of course, something stupid happens, in which case we’ll drop what we’re doing and tell you all about it.