Tony Cardone Is a Loser & Updated South Blooming Grove Election Fraud Timeline
A quick update on the (soon to be former) Monroe Town Supervisor's latest toddler fit and an updated South Blooming Grove election fraud timeline with all the latest information.
A note to readers: I know. We’re supposed to be on vacation. It hasn’t worked out as hoped. That said, below is a redacted email that was sent to a number of election attorneys concerning the phantom South Blooming Grove election held on Oct. 22, 2025.
Parts of the email have been removed from the public version to avoid giving away the legal strategy that’s going to be used against Joel Stern and friends.
Other parts were removed to prevent Stern and friends from identifying who’s involved with the coming lawsuits against them and potentially New York State Attorney General Letitia James.
Below is the letter. We’ll be back on or around Dec. 3 with our next story.
—BJ
P.S. To our Town of Monroe readers: On Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. will be the final board meeting of Tony Cardone’s reign of corrupt incompetence. Despite a resounding electoral defeat, Mr. Cardone has continued to spread disinformation about the 2026 town budget and the services he cut out of spite and stupidity.
Above: Tony Cardone tries to spin his evil, incompetent and malicious 2026 Town of Monroe budget in a video released on Facebook on Nov. 24, 2025. Cardone may be in need of medical care if he’s delusional enough to think he or Dorey Houle has any political future left in this town, which is what this video sure sounds like. Spin done by two losers looking to run again next time under the banner of “Maureen raised your taxes!” I don’t know what the future holds for The Monroe Gazette beyond November of 2026, but I promise you, if either of them think they’re going to run again, I’ll be there to stop them.
While Mr. Cardone and Mrs. Houle are being shown the door, there’s one last turd that needs to be flushed down the toilet, and that’s Councilman Sal Scancarello.
Despite the deep misgivings and concerns raised about the budget by Councilwoman Bingham and Councilwoman Richardson, Mr. Scancarello chose, repeatedly, to rubber-stamp Tony Cardone’s 2026 budget, which raises taxes on village residents for no reason and cuts programs and offerings for the elderly and the parks department. The budget does not provide 24-hour coverage for emergency medical services to take care of the needs of our elderly community, nor does it provide any money to assist in the town’s efforts to partner with the Village of Monroe Police Department.
This is the budget on which Mr. Scancarello cast the deciding vote to approve. We believe he must resign from his position, as he has demonstrated that he will not put the needs of the people of Monroe first but the needs and desires of Tony Cardone.
Given that Mr. Scancarello has previously attacked the supervisor-elect, resulting in her going to the emergency room; refuses to apologize to the Jewish community for his son’s actions in threatening to murder Satmar men at the Monroe Target in order to gain views on his TikTok account; and has made clear demonstrations that he does not care what the voters of Monroe think, Mr. Scancarello is unfit to continue to serve the public in his role.
You can email Mr. Scancarello at sscancarello@monroeny.org or call him at (845) 637-5615 and demand his resignation from the Monroe Town Board.
Sometimes you need to flush the toilet twice.
So let’s finish the job, Monroe.
2025 South Blooming Grove election fraud timeline
Dear [Redacted],
Thank you for speaking with me last week about the situation in South Blooming Grove. I’ll do my best to be brief, but I doubt I’ll be successful.
I hope you’ve had a chance to check out the recommended state court cases, including Powell v. Orange County Board of Elections, Michael L. Essig, et al. (Index No. EF011312-2025), and The County of Orange v. Cioffi 1, Inc., d/b/a Cioffi Services; RSBM Excavating LLC; RSBM Management, LLC; Watler & Sons Tree Services; and the Village of South Blooming Grove (Index No. EF000367-2023), as well as Maderia v. The Village of South Blooming Grove, which can be found in PACER under case No. 7:24-cv-07659.
Taken together, these three cases — as well as my previous case against the village, in which it is my opinion and belief that Village of South Blooming Grove clerk Kerry Dougherty committed perjury, BJ Mendelson v. The Village of South Blooming Grove (Index No. EF009645-2024) — will provide you with a nearly complete picture of the situation within the village of South Blooming Grove.
And for the record, since this will be an important point later on, RSBM stands for Rabbi Shaya Ben Moshe. In 2020, the RSBM Party, in which Joel Stern is identified as chairman, sued the village of South Blooming Grove to contest the counting of absentee ballots in RSBM Party et al. v. Dougherty, Kerry et al. (Index No. EF005187-2020).
Accusations of voter fraud using South Blooming Grove properties, and involving Joel Stern, Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein and other members of the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove organization, date back to 2017. Note that this organization lost its IRS not-for-profit status in or around May 2022 for failure to provide its Form 990s. When asked to provide its three most recent Form 990s by the Monroe Gazette in 2024, United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove removed its English-language website and kept only the Yiddish-language site online. The Monroe Gazette then filed a whistleblower form with the IRS (Form 13909).
United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove is sometimes, by Stern and Ekstein, claimed to be a functional branch of the village of South Blooming Grove government. You can see this in Town of Blooming Grove, New York v. Mahar, Sean et al. (Index No. 912403-24), in which the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation granted a permit to an entity that does not actually exist, known as the United Jewish Community Village of South Blooming Grove Emergency Response Division.
It is my understanding from friends and associates in the Haredi community, as well as intensive research and postings on Ivelt.com, that the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove entity is funded by a man named Avrum bur Jacobowitz (sometimes reported as Avrom Bur Jacobovitch or Avraham Ber Jacobowitz). Mr. Jacobowitz, either under the imprimatur of Grand Rebbe Zalman Teitelbaum or on his own (it’s not clear), began a project dating to at least 2017 to convert the rural residential village of South Blooming Grove into a city, with the idea of limiting the growth of the Village of Kiryas Joel/Town of Palm Tree in order to aid Zalman Teitelbaum’s efforts to become the leading power in the Satmar religious dynasty. At least one of Mr. Jacobowitz’s properties, 20 Shannon Lane, may have been used as part of an electoral fraud scheme dating to 2017. The Monroe Gazette has a number of FOILs with both the Orange County Board of Elections and the New York State Board of Elections concerning the names of individuals who claim to have lived at this and other addresses alleged to be involved with the scheme, as well as members of Stern’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove.
One more note about this organization, since it’s going to be important to the timeline provided below. On the Blooming Grove Town Board is Simon Schwartz, another member of Stern’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove organization. Mr. Schwartz also was appointed to the Village of South Blooming Grove planning board after Mayor George Kalaj illegally fired, without cause and without notice, the original village planning board members upon taking office in early 2021. Mr. Kalaj is frequently absent from meetings, and within the Haredi community Joel Stern is referred to as “the mayor.” Joel Stern has even identified himself in communications with state Sen. James Skoufis’s office, Rep. Pat Ryan’s office and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office as “village executive,” a position that does not exist anywhere in New York. After taking over the planning board, Mr. Stern is accused by members of the Haredi community of rapidly approving projects related to Mr. Jacobowitz and ignoring projects submitted by most other parties. Often, projects were (and are) built without receiving any permits at all, as long as they belong to, or are associated with, Mr. Jacobowitz, according to the allegations. There are strings that come with these permits.
For example, in the Powell case you’ll see 17 Sleepy Hollow Road in South Blooming Grove, which is not a residence but a yeshiva, is used as the address for absentee ballot voters. This arrangement, alleged to go back to 2017 between Joel Stern and the owners of the yeshiva (Yeshiva Bnos Ahvra Israel), involves the use of blank absentee ballots that are then filled out by the students studying at the yeshiva and cast for people Joel Stern wants to support. As part of the planning board, Mr. Schwartz and its other members were aware of this scheme and participated in it. I can provide video from these meetings that demonstrates the members of the planning board, and also the ZBA, are often clueless as to what’s being discussed and are looking at their phones for directions from Stern and Ekstein to know what to vote for and approve. Once the public got wise to this routine, the planning board meetings were moved to Friday morning at 10 a.m., and the ZBA hasn’t met at all since the start of 2025.
In the interest of keeping this email as concise as I can, I am not going to rehash the timeline provided by Chris Maderia in his court case against A.G. Letitia James. Instead, I am only going to provide you with a timeline involving 2025. I am also going to skip over the instances of voter fraud detected in the Powell case, since you can read about them there.
Timeline
January 2025 - If we assume that the Village of South Blooming Grove legitimately changed the Terms of Office from two-year terms to four-year terms — they didn’t, but let’s assume — then Mayor George Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Abraham M. Weiss, and Trustee Feldman would have been up for re-election in March of 2024. Instead, no election is held. The next regularly scheduled election would then be March of 2025 for Trustees Rosner and Guttman.
No mention is made of the 2025 March election. Ballots, nominating petitions, none of it.
February of 2025: A month before the March 2025 election, no mention of the election.
March of 2025:
On or around March 4th, 2025, no nominating petitions are submitted.
On or around March 8th, 2025, no ten day notice is submitted.
On March 18th, 2025, Rosner and Guttman’s term of office has now legally expired.
No election is held. From this point forward, the entire Board of Trustees are, essentially, acting as squatters, meaning that all decisions, appointments, and other actions are null and void.
April of 2025: Business as usual in SBG. Except …
May of 2025: Joel Stern gives sworn testimony in the Orange County case, where he says the terms of office for Mayor George Kalaj expires in March of 2026.
Note: This wouldn’t be the first time Joel Stern lied while giving sworn testimony. I have video of him giving testimony in Union Township (in New Jersey) concerning his activities at 601 Lehigh Avenue. A building the Township eventually chased him and Jacob Gold out of. Jacob Gold is worth flagging here as he is a major investor in the Clovewood development project. It’s clear from the video that absolutely no one speaking to Mr. Stern believes what he has to say.
As brief as I can explain it: In the early 2000s, a former country club was sold to a dissident group from the Village of Kiryas Joel. In order to block what would have been a massive housing development, the Town of Blooming Grove created the Village of South Blooming Grove. There’s a big court battle. Most of the dissidents form a company called Keen Equities, which owns the property. Keen Equities files for bankruptcy in 2013 and tells the court it’s sending new management to South Blooming Grove to hopefully get the project going again. That new management is Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein. Stern was/is an employee of Jacob Gold at Windsor Global, the company based at 601 Lehigh Avenue. Stern and Ekstein’s job is to essentially do whatever it takes to get the Clovewood project approved, which they do upon taking over the Village following the September 2020 election. There are numerous issues concerning Clovewood, which you can catch up on in the above mentioned court case involving the Town of Blooming Grove and the DEC.
See also for historic context: Zalman Berkovitz, Solomon Witriol, Mendel Schwimmer, Bernie Jacobowitz, Joseph Strulovitch, Jacob Gold, Moses Greenfield, and Sam Wiesner v. Village of South Blooming Grove. The names in bold are confirmed as investors in Keen Equities LLC
After The Monroe Gazette publishes excerpts of Joel Stern’s testimony from May of 2025, there are rumblings of dissatisfaction in the Haredi community concerning the leadership of Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein.
From this point on, no minutes of any meeting is provided by the Village of South Blooming Grove. The Monroe Gazette, in October of 2025, threatens to sue the Village for violation of New York State’s Open Meeting Law (OML), following the phantom election held on October 22nd, 2025. The weekend of November 22nd, The Village of South Blooming Grove then rushes new minutes onto their website to meet the deadline we provided them to come into compliance with the OML.
These documents are, in my opinion, sketchy at best.
June 2025:
There are two regularly scheduled Village of South Blooming Grove meetings in June of 2025. The first is June 9th, 2025, and the second is June 23rd, 2025. In both instances, according to Blooming Grove Supervisor Robert Jeroloman, the Village of South Blooming Grove requested that the Town of Blooming Grove police be present, and the Town of Blooming Grove assigned police officers to be present at these meetings.
This is standard procedure for Village of South Blooming Grove meetings (to have the police there) despite the fact that there are rarely members of the public present, and public comment is not allowed at meetings. I have witnessed first hand that Mr. Stern uses the Town of Blooming Grove police to bully, threaten, and intimidate the members of the public who are present at these meetings.
There are still, as of this writing, no meeting minutes posted for June 9th, 2025; however, The Monroe Gazette spoke with Preserve Blooming Grove’s Bonnie Rum, who routinely films Village of South Blooming Grove and Town of Blooming Grove meetings. While no video exists anymore of the June 9th, 2025 meeting, Mrs. Rum stated unequivocally that she was present at this meeting, that no discussion took place at the June 9th meeting concerning a meeting to be held on June 10th at 5pm. No discussion took place involving concerns raised by Joel Stern about moving the time and date of the election. And no discussion took place involving concerns Mr. Ekstein would later raise involving difficulties in publishing official Town notices in the Times-Herald Record.
Upon reviewing the agendas and minutes from the beginning of January to June of 2025, at no point are any of these issues raised or discussed at Village Board meetings.
June 10th, 2025
Despite this, the next day, on June 10th, 2025, another Village Board meeting is alleged to be held. According to the Town of Blooming Grove Police Department, no police officer was requested or assigned to this meeting. The June 10th meeting is also alleged to have been held at 5pm without notification to the public. The meeting minutes for the June 10th were only created on October 28th, 2025. Nearly five months later.
These June 10th meeting minutes were also created exactly one day after The Monroe Gazette recorded, and posted, a conversation with Village Clerk Dougherty asking about the resolutions and local laws that allowed for the date of the election to be held, which neither the Village Clerk nor Deputy Clerk were able to produce when asked.
At the alleged June 10th meeting, Joel Stern claims residents have asked him to move the election up from March to October. He does not identify any residents or provide any rationale provided by those residents for the change in date.
At the alleged June 10th meeting, Isaac Ekstein complains of problems he’s allegedly encountered in submitting information to the Times-Heralrd Record, specifically that he would prefer the Village not rely on a system that relies on manual submission of legal notices by email. (Pay attention to this last point. It’s going to come back later.)
It’s worth noting here that both Mayor George Kalaj is alleged to have attended this meeting, as well as Village Attorney, Scott Ugell. Mr. Ugell; however, upon reviewing his Facebook Page, was very busy promoting the opening of his new pizza place, Mangia Pizza, down in New City, which is a forty minute drive without the usual traffic that accompanies anyone’s journey from Orange County into Rockland.
At the June 10th meeting, the following resolutions are hastily introduced and approved:
Resolution 1: Naming the Wallkill Valley Times an additional newspaper of record for the Village.
Resolution 2: Movement of the Village elections from March of 2026 to October of 2025, pending a referendum. (Stern claims in these meeting minutes that the Village Attorney told him he could move the election date; but it’s not clear which Village Attorney he is speaking of since Mr. Ugell apparently does very little and the firm of Monaco Cooper and Lamm PLLC do most of the work these days. These is also Ira Emannuel, who is also sometimes cited as being a Village Attorney, although at no point has The Village of South Blooming Grove provided any documentation to The Monroe Gazette concerning Mr. Emannuel’s activities.
Resolution 3: The date of the referendum is set for June 23rd from 12pm to 9pm at Village Hall. Nobody here mentions that this is during the Village Board meeting. At no point, as far as we can tell — there is a pending FOIL request with the Orange County Board of Elections — is Orange County notified of the referendum. The Monroe Gazette has requested security camera footage via FOIL for the June 9th, June 10th, June 23rd, and June 24th dates at Village Hall. We suspect this footage will be mysteriously unavailable if and when the Village gets around to fulfilling that FOIL.
Resolution 4: Joel Stern and fellow United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove member, Shmaya Spitzer, are assigned as election inspectors for this public referendum.
Mr. Ekstein’s name appears as the Village Deputy Clerk at the end of these meeting minutes; however, when The Monroe Gazette asked Mr. Kalaj to confirm when Ekstein was appointed Deputy Clerk, Kalaj said “a few months ago.” This statement came in October. When we asked Kalaj, Dougherty, and Ekstein to confirm the date of Ekstein’s appointment to Village Clerk, all three declined to comment.
The meeting then adjourns thirty minutes later. At no point is the public noticed concerning the referendum, as far as we know. We have also reached out to the Wallkill Valley Times / Mid-Hudson Valley Times to search their database and see if they received any notices from the Village of South Blooming Grove concerning the referendum.
The regularly scheduled June 23rd meeting happens. George Kalaj, Isaac Ekstein, and Joel Stern are absent from this meeting. No mention is made concerning the referendum that is allegedly happening at the same exact time at this meeting, at the same exact location.
Mrs. Dougherty routinely records video of South Blooming Grove meetings, and we have placed a FOIL request for the footage she filmed from this and the other June meetings. We doubt we’re going to get it.
Mrs. Dougherty makes no mention of the referendum at this meeting.
Worth noting: Simon Schwartz, as mentioned, is a member of the Town of Blooming Grove Board. At each meeting, Mr. Schwartz and other Ward representatives are given time to update the community on important matters happening within their ward. During the month of June, Mr. Schwartz says nothing about the alleged referendum. Mr. Schwartz has not replied to The Monroe Gazette for requests for comment as to why he did not inform his residents, using this time, of a referendum to change the date of the local election from March of 2026 to October of 2025.
June 24th, 2025
There is no agenda posted for June 24th, 2025’s meeting, allegedly held at 9pm. The Town of Blooming Grove Police Department are not requested for any meetings held on this day.
The meeting minutes for June 24th, 2025, were created on or around November 20th, 2025, by Kerry Dougherty according to meta data pulled from the document. Five months later.
At this alleged meeting, Ekstein claims the referendum was successful in moving the election from March of 2026 to October of 2025; however, no totals are presented.
The Board then unanimously, and again, approve Joel Stern and Spitzer to serve as election inspectors for an election to be held on October 22nd from 12pm to 9pm at Village Hall. Once again, The Monroe Gazette has requested security camera footage from Village Hall for that day. We do not expect this request to be fulfilled.
At this point, I need to flag that the Orange County Board of Elections, after originally saying they had no awareness of the October 22nd election, sent to News 12 a document claiming to be a Local Law passed by South Blooming Grove approving the change of dates for the election. However, we have FOIL’ed for documents from Orange County Board of Elections and have received no such document. We have also asked our friends at News 12 to check out the meta data on that resolution to see when exactly it was created. We have not yet heard back from them. When we asked Clerk Dougherty to print out the local law affirming the change in dates for the election, she refused to do so. We have this on video. Mrs. Dougherty stated she would answer all of our questions, and as of this writing — a full month from the day we sent our email — Mrs. Dougherty has not replied to our email.
The alleged June 24th meeting is then adjourned twenty minutes later at 9:20pm.
No mention is again made, anywhere, about the referendum or the change in election date.
We also want to flag here that we spoke with representatives for the Department of State. They provided us with all the local laws submitted to them by the Village of South Blooming Grove since the start at 2025. Among them, none were found involving the election or any of the resolutions I just listed for you here in this section. When we asked Clerk Dougherty directly why the Department of State had no resolutions or local laws concerning the change in election date, she replied only by flipping us off. (This may still be on the Preserve Blooming Grove video from November.)
From this point forward, there is zero mention of the election, including in the September 2025 meeting minutes and agenda a month prior. Mr. Schwartz, in his capacity as Town Board member in Blooming Grove representing Ward 4 (South Blooming Grove) also makes no mention of the election.
So we’re going to skip ahead here to October of 2025
June 2025 to September 2025: No word is mentioned about ballots, nominating petitions, or any of the other policies are procedures that typically involve getting on the ballot.
On Oct. 9, 2025, Joel Stern — from his Gmail account — sent an ad to the Mid-Hudson Times announcing the Oct. 22, 2025, election. The Mid-Hudson Times provided a copy after searching their records; we thank them for their help. We also want to note here that, despite Mr. Ekstein’s complaints about having to manually email notices in to the Times-Heralrd Record, Joel Stern — using his personal gmail account — sends in a notice to the Wallkill Valley Times announcing the election for October 22nd.
Worth noting: George Kalaj is listed as residing at 58 Fort Worth Place; however, it’s not clear if Mr. Kalaj resides there. It’s our recommendation that the following steps be taken to verify Mr. Kalaj’s true location: (redacted) and (redacted.)
There is a whole side story here about 58 Fort Worth Place, how it was purchased for 890% above its market value, how the purchaser is linked back to Joel Stern’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove and Jacobowitz.
There are no minutes provided for the October 20th, 2025 Village of South Blooming Grove meeting, but worth also flagging is this agenda item: “Resolution of the Village Board of the Village of South Blooming Grove authorizing the Mayor to enter into agreements with 58 Fort Worth Place pertaining to the Site Plan.”
How exactly can the Mayor, who resides at 58 Fort Worth Place, vote on or enter into an agreement with the owner of 58 Fort Worth Place? If the Mayor does not actually reside at this address, or if there is concern he does not reside there, what steps (if any) did the Village take to verify George Kalaj’s true residence?
On Oct. 16, from his United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove email (not his official village address), Joel Stern requested the complete South Blooming Grove voter roll from the Orange County Board of Elections. We obtained this and related emails via FOIL. Recall here that Stern and Spitzer have been appointed Election Inspectors for this October 22nd election.
On October 20th, Isaac Ekstein, now identified as the deputy clerk, sends an email to the Orange County Board of Elections stating that the election went well with 61 yeas and 10 nays. There are no attachments to this email. There is no request for clarification by the OC BOE on what election Ekstein is discussing here. There’s nothing. Just this vague statement. Mr. Ekstein, what we do know, is referring to the alleged June referendum to change the date of the election. Why Mr. Ekstein did not provide that 61 people voted yes, and 10 voted no — if they voted at all — during the 9pm June 24th meeting is not clear. We’ll also point out here that there’s about 3,000 registered voters in the Village of South Blooming Grove, meaning just above 3% of voters voted in this referendum to change the date of the election.
On October 21st, Ekstein again emails Orange County Board of Elections asking for the signatures on the voter roll to make sure the right person is voting. Keep in mind, both Stern and Spitzer, like Ekstein, are members of the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove, and Stern and Spitzer also inspectors for this election. From this point on, allegations follow that Ekstein wanted the signature book so that he, Stern, and Spitzer could forge signatures.
I need to rewind for a second. There is a building located across from the SBG Village Hall owned by Stern and Ekstein. At one point, it was a Rapid Care. Now it’s an office for Blooming Realty, a company that is alleged to have provided housing to Isaac Ekstein at 2 Arlington Drive while his home on Roanoke Drive was under construction. In 2022, and apparently still ongoing, the FBI has been looking into a large number of voters being registered to Isaac Ekstein’s address at 2 Arlington Drive. In 2024, both Stern and Ekstein were reported to the Orange County Board of Elections for walking members of the Haredi community into the rapid care, filling out the ballots for them, and then walking them out. Mr. Stern and Ekstein were also alleged to have been going door to door in 2024 to collect ballots, claiming they would then deliver them. The Orange County Board of Elections and the Orange County District Attorney took no action on these claims, as far as we know. The Orange County District Attorney did report the large number of absentee ballot requests in 2022 from 2 Arlington Drive to the FBI. The District Attorney’s office claims an investigation into South Blooming Grove is ongoing, but we find that hard to believe.
Also on October 21st, at the Town of Blooming Grove meeting, Simon Schwartz makes no mention of the election happening the next day.
On October 22nd, this is what has been alleged to have happened: Joel Stern called his business associates and friends to Village Hall. He did not tell them why. When they arrived, Stern is said to have informed them that they are voting in a Village Election. It is not clear if all of these men were inhabitants of South Blooming Grove, or if Ekstein or others forged signatures to make it look like they were.
The votes then broke down as follows:
129 votes for Mayor Kalaj, 132 votes for Abraham Weiss, 130 votes for Yitzchok Feldman. All running on … You guessed it. The RSBM Party.
So I want to make sure you have this picture: Joel Stern is the Chairmen of the RSBM Party. Joel Stern is the Election Inspector of this alleged October 22nd election. Joel Stern called his friends and associates to vote in this election, wherein he, Ekstein, and Spitzer may have forged signatures.
No voting machines or other equipment or assistance was requested by the Village of South Blooming Grove to the Orange County Board of Elections.
On October 24th, a brief, vague mention of the South Blooming Grove election is made on the cover of the KJ Weekly, but no mention is included in the paper. Just the announcement on the cover announcing the re-election of the incumbents.
On October 27th, I went to Village Hall, as well as other residents of South Blooming Grove. This election was not noticed anywhere. Clerk Dougherty claimed it was noticed on the bulletin board outside the building. I inspected this bulletin board and did not see any notice for the election. Mrs. Kelly Parzer also went to Village Hall to confront Mrs. Dougherty, and she did not view a flyer in the bulletin board either. The flyer for the election only appeared in early November, after our coverage and News 12’s coverage of the phantom election.
During this time, State Senator James G. Skoufis claims that he is investigating the election; however, texts shared with The Monroe Gazette from [redacted] shows Isaac Ekstein stating Skoufis wasn’t upset that an election occurred, he was upset that he wasn’t given the heads-up about it. For that reason, and because Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein are large donors of Mr. Skoufis, we do not believe the State Senator is taking any sort of action.
During this time, Letitia James – according to Skoufis — is also said to be looking into the issues with the election; however, as noted in the Maderia case, the New York State Attorney General, as well as other offices such as the Comptroller and Governor, are well aware of the issues in South Blooming Grove. At no point has Letitia James demonstrated any interest in investigating the situation.
For this reason, I believe that [redacted].
As of this writing, this is the most complete picture I can paint for you. We still have FOIL requests pending with multiple State agencies and the Village of South Blooming Grove. But I hope there’s enough here for you to consider [ redacted.]
-BJ Mendelson
Editor, The Monroe Gazette