The Round Lake Story Takes A Strange Tim Mitts Related Turn
The latest on who owns the island, and what might get built near a potentially polluted lake
Pictured Above: We didn’t make this. Some schmuck on Facebook did. But since they used our name—which we admittedly borrowed from the original Monroe Gazette—I doubt anyone will mind if we post it.
I was trying to explain to someone the other day that only Fox News-addled Grandpas use AI. Then the universe gave me this gift to prove my point.
I try to avoid weekend posts
But.
People in Monroe are worried about Round Lake and the potential for development around it.
They should be.
If I was a betting man, I’d tell you: Assume it’s happening and be prepared to fight. But. Fight smart.
If paid subscribers are demanding I write about something on the weekend, like they were this morning, I write about something on the weekend.
Hence, we got ourselves a Saturday post.
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Now, I don’t want anyone to misunderstand me:
I personally am against any development that’s not mindful of our climate emergency. Period. That is my reason. Nothing else. Whatever your reason is for opposing any development in Monroe, it should be clearly stated at Town meetings.
Otherwise, from this point on, assume potential real estate developers are going to claim in court that your opposition to their developments is antisemitic.
If Mr. Mann wanted to build 80 units in high-density housing around Round Lake, I would be opposed to that on the grounds that our national and local electric grid cannot handle any more strain.
If these buildings don’t have solar on all their balconies and their roof, I’ll fight it until they do.
This way, even if I lose and the development is built, I will have at least won on the solar energy front as a concession from the developer.
Make sense?
This, at least on paper, will help ensure our electric rates don’t go up. In fact, depending on how much solar energy is collected, if that development can supply power to the surrounding houses and get them off Orange and Rockland entirely, all the better.
This is important because everyone has their own reasons for not wanting development in their community, and you need to know mine. Every reporter, no matter what they tell you, has a bias.
Now, let’s talk what can be shared factually:
There are no plans submitted to any governing body (Orange County Planning Board or Monroe’s Zoning, Planning, or Town Board) concerning any development around Round Lake at this time. The Monroe Gazette will be watching for any change on that front.
Joel Mann, the owner of the 72 acres, said there are no plans at this time. It is possible, through a newly created LLC, that Joel Mann purchased the Island from Mr. Sorrentino on or around August 4th.
Tony Cardone, Dorey Houle, Steven Thau, Carol Scully, Carol Hawxhurst, Mark Lunde, and others have claimed to see construction, digging, and other work being done on Joel Mann’s property. Thus creating hysteria.
Last fall, over 60% of Monroe residents—mostly non-Satmar by the way—voted Houle and Cardone out of office. Thau, for the third time, was stomped electorally as well. The people of Monroe have now, repeatedly, rejected Steven Thau, and yet he continues to speak on behalf of Town residents, repeatedly, at almost every meeting. Probably because he’s going to run, and lose, for a fourth time.
Please, someone, anyone, tell this man Dorey Houle’s favorite line: “Enough is enough.” Go away.
So, this Dollar Store Howard Stern Wack Pack is trying to interject politics into something that should be non-partisan.
Don’t let them do that.
Cardone, Houle, and Scancarello, by their very behavior in office, have presented more than enough evidence to show they don’t care about what happens to this community.
If they did, for example, they would have formed an IMA with the Village Police to give you the police coverage residents have been demanding for years.
Remember this: You don’t have adequate police protection because of Dorey Houle, Sal Scancarello, and Tony Cardone. That is the ONLY reason.
That is a fact that can be viewed across three Town Hall meetings during the fall of 2025 just before the election.
Don’t take my word for it.
Go watch it yourself, and then watch the meetings after the election where Houle, Scancarello, and Cardone slash the budget that would have funded a joint study between the Town and Village for the Police IMA. The first step in expanding the Village Police.
This is what they did factually. I know they like to lie and gaslight people, but the evidence is right there in front of you. You just have to look at it.
And then there’s convicted felon Tim Mitts and the Island in the center of Round Lake. Does Mitts own it? No Is he leasing it? He was. Is he now? Well … As we predicted, he already owes someone money.
Cardone & Friends Are Intentionally Conflating Pollution Cleanup With Development
Because there’s so much we don’t know, and can’t know until Mr. Mann or another developer submits plans, we have to be careful.
Whenever there’s an information gap, assholes look to fill it. I wrote a whole book about that, which you can read for free here.
In this case, those assholes are: Tony Cardone, Dorey Houle, Steven Thau, Mark Lunde, Carol Scully, Carol Hawxhurst, and others. (We’ll get to Tim Mitts in just a moment.)
Mr. Lunde, for example, has made multiple claims of DEC, EPA, and Army Corps of Engineers involvement in and around Joel Mann’s 72 acres on Round Lake. Specifically, that these agencies are investigating Mann.
We have reached out to the DEC, EPA, and Army Corps of Engineers for comment. This post will be updated if we receive a response. We have also put in Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests concerning Round Lake with the DEC, Orange County Environmental Services, the EPA, and the Army Corps of Engineers.
(The EPA Region 2 Office, which oversees New York, is overseen by Trump appointee Mike Martucci. The publisher of Mid-Hudson News is something they routinely fail to disclose to their readers. Martucci may have a relationship with Tony Cardone, so we’ve asked the EPA to comment on the nature of their relationship and whether or not Mr. Martucci is communicating with Mr. Cardone about any EPA investigations specifically involving Joel Mann.)
Mr. Mark Lunde has been unable to provide any evidence of verifiable communications (note the plural) with the agencies he claims.
Mr. Lunde, for the record, was the one accused by several attendees at last week’s meeting of saying, “I’m sweating more than a n***r in heat.” Mr. Lunde has not replied to our request for comment as to why he would say such a thing at a Town Board meeting. But let’s take a look at that screenshot he provided.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B: The Screenshot
Mr. Lunde, after multiple requests, produced the following screenshot—but like with Tim Mitts’s screenshots below—you may notice some vital information missing from Lunde’s screenshot.
The email addresses are missing.
The date and time of the email is missing.
The rest of the header information is missing.
And there is no rest of the image, at least produced by Lunde at this time, that would indicate whom this email was from.
Whether or not this is also the ONLY email is important.
Without this information, we don’t know if Lunde actually spoke to someone, or he got one of those form responses you get when you file a complaint, which would explain the one email he (sort of) took a screenshot of.
But. Let’s say this email is real. It could be!
And let’s say he did speak to someone.
If so, this would mean there is an actual EPA investigation with the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the DEC. That’s great news.
But. It does NOT mean the investigation is into Joel Mann, which is what Lunde, Cardone, Houle, Thau, Scully, Hawxhurst, Mitts, and others want residents to believe.
You see the problem here?
Remember: Orange County Sewer District 1’s equipment runs through Joel Mann’s property and, at some point—that equipment failed and Round Lake was polluted. When this happened, we don’t know yet. Is it still happening? We don’t know yet.
So The Monroe Gazette has also FOILED the DEC and Orange County for further information.
But we want to repeat this point: This group of fools is running around saying Joel Mann polluted the property. He might have. But there is no evidence to support this yet. But.
We also know factually that OCSD1 has sewer lines running through Mann’s property, and that those sewer lines failed at some point recently. We’ve also previously reported problems concerning the Round Lake Interceptor that is supposed to divert sewage from the lake.
By the way: It’s going to be fucking amazing if it turns out those sewer lines ruptured and polluted Round Lake during Tony Cardone’s tenure as Town Supervisor, and he never bothered to tell anyone about it. Until right now. When it was politically convenient for him to do so.
Which tracks, because as you’ll recall, for five years Tony Cardone, Dorey Houle, Sal Scancarelo failed to inform the public repeatedly of a dangerous gas on the children’s playground at Airplane Park.
This is good news in the respect that, any sort of pollution to the lake and remediation efforts should—not will—should prohibit any sort of development in and around Round Lake for the foreseeable future. If you fight smart, it will. If you don’t, it won’t.
That brings us to Tim Mitts and his latest scam
This morning (Saturday) Mr. Mitts posted the following images.
He also posted a edited screenshot of his lease agreement with Mr. Sorrentino / Mr. Mann and refused to produce the entire document when requested. If Mitts posts the actual thing, we’ll go back and post it here.
The Monroe Gazette reached out to the attorneys listed to make sure they’re real and not made up.
Given Mr. Mitt’s track record of compulsively lying, to say nothing of defrauding both the federal government and his customers, not to mention countless others to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars across both Orange and Rockland County, anything that man posts online needs to be fact checked extensively.
If it’s a Tim Mitts Facebook post, treat it like you would the guy on the subway making eye contact with everyone while only wearing a trench coat.
Here’s the letter Mitts posted. (Also: Note the self-own of Tim Mitts once again not being able to pay his bills.)
And here is our attempt to fact check those letters. Take note of how I include my headers when I share screenshots of my emails so you know they’re legit.
Below: Pamela Lee is Mr. Mitt’s girlfriend. Because Mr. Mitts is a convicted felon who owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to people across Orange and Rockland Counties, Mrs. Lee’s name appears as the owner of almost all of Mitt’s properties and LLCs.
So, What’s Really Happening?
Mitts is claiming this letter, if real, shows that Joel Mann now owns the island. Not Mr. Sorrentino.
(We’ve been told Sorrentino was originally going to sell the Island and some of his property around Round Lake to the Town until Mitts interjected himself, but this has proven difficult to verify.)
I can confirm that the LLC, Meadow Hill Island does exist, and that the PO Box 140, Monroe, NY 10949, does connect to The Rockman Group LLC, which was created by Joel Man.
So, yes. It’s possible that Mr. Mann did acquire the island and is the owner of this new LLC. As you can see above, we asked Mann’s attorney to help provide some clarity here.
There is something I know that I can’t print yet. But if that thing happens, you need to be wary of what Mitts is posting.
I mean, you should always be wary of anything that man posts. He’s a convicted felon. But I’ll remind you of a simple fact:
Every single time Tim Mitts talks about suing the Town of Monroe, remember that YOU PAY FOR THAT.
It’s not some great heroic quest he’s on. It’s another con job. One you pay for.
That’s because the Town needs to pay its legal bills, which raises its insurance and costs tens of thousands of dollars. That means your taxes go up to pay those bills.
Don’t be his next mark.
And as far as the Island goes, as you saw, we contacted Mann’s attorney and we’ve reached out to the Town Supervisor for comment on who owns it.
If there was an ownership change, what I can say is that Mr. Mann is not Mr. Sorentino. Mr. Sorrentino, is reported to not have wanted to sell the Island to the Town. But …
Well. Stay tuned.