Who Did Councilwoman Teresa Luongo threaten to Dox?
Here is a simple test, called The Luongo, that you can use to answer the question of who you should trust when it comes to your elected, and unelected, representatives.
Above: Woodbury Town Supervisor Kathryn Luciani (Left) and Woodbury Deputy Town Supervisor Theresa Luongo (right), pictured here moments before adding another page to their Burn Book.
The photo, posted on Facebook, was taken at an event attended by the Speaker of the House, Creepy Mike Johnson, pictured below looking far away from the only woman on stage with him. (She was the one running for Congress.)
I’m not going to be able to do The Monroe Gazette forever.
If you remember, I said we’d end on August 1st, 2024. Now, here we are going into 2025 …
So, I will let you know, right now, this thing has an end date.
That end date will likely be just after the November 2025 election, but no later than November 15th, 2025.
(Or before some crazed white nationalist in Woodbury shoots me for finding out where they all hang out. Whatever comes first.)
This is because Der Fuhrer (Monroe Town Supervisor, Tony Cardone) is finally on the ballot next November.
Since I was involved with United Monroe briefly, I feel partly responsible for this disease infecting the Town of Monroe and I now have to do my part and help provide the cure.
This election gives everyone a chance to turn the page on United Monroe and the years of fiscal mismanagement, bullying, and other shitty behavior that they infected this Town with.
And since you all have Cardone to thank for The Monroe Gazette’s existence, I thought it’d be fitting and proper to see this through and watch both him and Soft on Crime Dorey Houle get booted out of office.
That November 2025 election is also Judgement Day over in Woodbury for Clovewood Kathryn and her weird friends, Councilman Conspiracy Theories (Brandon Calore) and Gretchen Wieners (Theresa Luongo).
If they are all defeated, the Towns of Woodbury and Monroe will have fully functioning governments again.
In Monroe’s case, it will be the first time the town has had a functional government in at least a decade. Maybe longer, depending on how you feel about Harley Doles.
You know what that means, right?
For Woodbury, the November 2025 election means finally getting all the real estate developers and their proxies out from your local government.
It also means having a functional police force that is more concerned with keeping you safe and less about abusing the overtime system and keeping their private security contracts.
For Monroe, this won’t be an easy mess to clean up.
I’m going to level with you: Whoever runs against Cardone and Houle will need time and patience from the people electing them to fix their mess because it will take their entire term to do so.
United Monroe’s endorsed candidates of Soft on Crime Dorey Houle, Mr. Fiscal Responsibility Tony Cardone, Slippery Sal Scancarello, and Mike McGinn previously, all left the Town of Monroe in dire fiscal straights. So much so that, in 2025, taxes in Monroe will go up by 11%. (That’s a real number, by the way. That’s not one of those Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats made-up numbers.)
Councilwomen Maureen Richardson and Mary Bingham are in the minority and cannot currently do anything.
If that sounds insane, yes, it is.
Unfortunately, Southern Orange County is lousy with corrupt Town Supervisors. Chester had Bob Valentine. Woodbury has Kathryn Luciani. Monroe has Tony Cardone.
Chester just got rid of Valentine, and it’s going to take years for Chester to dig out of the hole he left the Town in.
That’s going to be the job for anyone who replaces Cardone and Luciani too. It’s going to take a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a lot of cooperation from the community.
So, I’m bummed to see stuff like former New York State Senate Candidate Tim Mitts calling Maureen Richardson a “piece of shit” when she literally cannot do what she was elected to do specifically because of Mr. Fiscal Responsibility, Tony Cardone.
What Mitts is doing is the exact opposite of the kind of leadership we need right now.
(Mr. Mitts is probably going to run for Monroe Town Supervisor, so he thinks calling his likely competitor, Maureen Richardson, a “piece of shit” is a sound strategy, but it’s not. Especially when people will be focused entirely on the tax hikes and nothing else.)
Also, if I had an entire Facebook group out there, consisting of people with stories claiming I ripped them off financially? I wouldn’t be going around calling anyone a piece of shit, you know?
Mr. Mitts should consider carefully who he goes after, and why, because I don’t think the people in that Facebook group are going to stay quiet for much longer. Especially if he keeps picking on Councilwoman Richardson for absolutely no reason.
If or when Mrs. Richardson fails The Luongo Test (below), you can criticize her. Until then, focus your fire on the people with the power: Slippery Sal Scancrello, Soft on Crime Dorey Houle, Mr. Tax Hike Tony Cardone. They voted to approve the budget that jacked up everyone’s taxes. They’re the ones you should be focused on.
Remember: As far as South Blooming Grove goes, people only have two choices now: Move or Sue. That’s what happens when a developer successfully takes over your local government, like Keen Equities did.
And once the real estate developer takes over? You are all alone. No Congressman is going to help you. No State Senator. Not even the Governor. We’ve seen that firsthand.
So, the goal for Monroe, Woodbury, Washingtonville, and Blooming Grove residents is to work together and get the real estate proxies out of office—plain and simple.
They don’t know how to govern. They’re not there to govern. They’re there to spend your money — Mr. Tax Hike Tony Cardone makes $186,000 or so in salary, for example — and then they complain about you when you question them.
Raising taxes and driving you out of your home is their goal.
That way, real estate developers can buy your homes and your entire community on the cheap.
Joel Stern in South Blooming Grove is no different from Tony Cardone in Monroe, and neither is different from Katrhyn Luciani in Woodbury or Bob Valentine before them in Chester.
So you might be wondering, ok, if there’s no Monroe Gazette after November 2025 — there absolutely won’t be — how do I know if the next generation of elected officials are people I can trust? Where do I get my news from?
I’ll answer that second question later. I can answer that first question today.
That’s because today, I will re-introduce you to The Luongo.
Now is a good time to do so because Woodbury just got a new Town Councilman, Rob Beckley, and I’ve got a few questions from readers about him. Basically, “Can I trust this guy?” Mr. Beckley was appointed Town Councilman at the November 21st, 2024, Woodbury Town Board meeting.
I use The Luongo to decide who to write about and who to trust regarding elected and unelected officials.
I encourage you to do the same and pass it on. If you use this test, you will never go wrong.
The Luongo Test gets its name from current Woodbury Town Councilperson Teresa Luongo (aka Gretchen Wieners) and a super sketchy thing she did back at the November 2nd, 2023, Woodbury Town Board meeting.
If I was teaching someone how to be a journalist — more on that later — one of the first things I’d teach them is The Luongo Test or “The Luongo” if you’re nasty.
It’s a relatively simple test with three questions, and the answer must be yes to all three questions to determine whether or not you can report on that person ethically, morally, and without fear of legal retaliation.
Is this person you’re going to write about an asshole?
Is this person in a position where they can harm others?
Is this person’s actions harming others without good faith debate or discussion?
That second question determines whether or not someone is a public figure. If they’re a public figure (for our purposes, an elected official), you can report on them. You can write about them if they are a limited public figure too. It gets a little dicey if they are neither.
For example, I have it on good authority that a restaurant in Woodbury has played host to at least one gathering of the Proud Boys, a hate group as designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center. We are currently working to see if these meetings are still happening there before the story can run.
I also have video of that restaurant owner marching toward the Capitol on January 6th. You know, the attempt to kill the sitting Vice President and overthrow our democracy? It’s the same event where the national chair of the Proud Boys, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, was charged and sentenced to 22 years in jail for seditious conspiracy.
The thing is, that person isn’t a public figure, although the video definitely shows them engaged in a crime — attending the Trump rally was one thing, marching toward the Capitol Building and entering it is another — That’s a question for a lawyer to answer. If you’re going to report on the news, make sure you’re friendly with a bunch of lawyers. I’m lucky in that regard. (There are also a lot of free legal resources for reporters, such as the cleverly titled Lawyers for Reporters.)
Let me quickly explain what a Limited Public Figure is before we move on.
A Limited Public Figure is the Village of Woodbury’s Unelected Trustee, Rhonda Fabbro.
Mrs. Fabbro has made herself into the main character at the last few Village Board meetings, and online she has actively defended her Baby Boy, Village Trustee Matthew Fabbro.
This includes making false claims about Mr. Fabbro’s compliance with recent FOIL requests from The Monroe Gazette. For the record: No. He hasn’t complied appropriately with these requests. We FOIL’ed for text messages sent between himself and Clovewood Kathryn concerning the IMA (inter-municipal agreement) and the Board of Ethics members.
Clovewood Kathryn went ahead and signed the certification we requested, stating she had completed a thorough search of her records and found none. (We don’t believe her.) Trustee Fabbro has not completed that same certification, but he and his mother have loudly complained they are doing so.
So, for our purposes, Mrs. Rhonda Fabbro is a Limited Public Figure because she meets the definition that she’s trying to influence the public in some way, specifically to obtain a favorable outcome for herself or a member of her family. In this case, she’s trying to convince you that her son is being a good little boy with these FOIL requests, when he most definitely is not.
That’s a Limited Public Figure. Chirs Maderia in South Blooming Grove is another example. Regardless of whether or not he does run for Village Trustee in March, he’s now engaged in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Village, and he has loudly made himself the center of attention at multiple public meetings, including the Village Board meeting held this month where he got into a pissing match with the South Blooming Grove Village Attorney, Sleepy Scott Ugell.
With me so far? You can write about elected officials. You can write about people trying to make themselves into the main character at public meetings.
Anyone else you should check with an attorney first.
No test is perfect.
There are always exceptions, too, but I encourage you not to make too many and to be consistent about the ones you do.
For example, I have a story coming up about Washingtonville selling its “excess” water via a third party to South Blooming Grove. The answers to the test for that story are: No, Yes, and Maybe … I’m not sure yet.
Let me explain that last answer.
The Village Board of Trustees in Washingtonville has discussed selling the water via Spindler Bulk Transport with the public at its meetings.
But.
Some evidence shows that the answers provided have not been entirely truthful.
For example, South Blooming Grove received water truck deliveries from Spindler Bulk Transport on two consecutive days after the Village’s announcement that it would no longer be selling that water due to the drought.
So why would I still write this story if the answers aren’t all “Yes”?
Your exceptions may be different from mine. For me, everything I write and think about involves Climate Change. So if you’re selling “excess” water while living in a world with less and less available fresh water, I’m going to write about that. Whether you realize it or not, you’re putting your community in danger by selling that water when you should be storing it and working to capture more.
I believe firmly that we cannot fuck around with our water supply. I get that not everyone is taking the Climate Crisis seriously. And I get that, in New York, we’re going to have a really hard time doing so because we’re going to have both extreme flooding, heavy rain AND long periods of drought and hot dry weather.
You have to prepare for both.
Washingtonville is not doing that. Neither is South Blooming Grove. Not doing so is a violation of the toothless Green Amendment in New York State’s constitution.
So, that’s an example of an exception to The Luongo.
All I can say is to trust your gut on the exceptions and make sure you have a clear explanation as to why you won’t follow the test for a particular story.
If someone asks you why you’re not following your own rules, you owe them a damn good explanation.
For me, Climate Change has put us all in danger, and we need to take seriously the management of our farmable land and our water supply.
That’s why I’m making the exception for the upcoming Washingtonville story.
Applying The Luongo to Woodbury’s Newest Councilman
I give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
I also believe in second chances.
So, at this very moment, the new Woodbury Town Councilperson, Rob Beckley, is at the benefit-of-the-doubt stage. I don’t know anything about him other than he currently works for the Village Highway Department, and that you can hire him to remove some trees for you.
If he says or does something stupid, he will enter the “Second Chances” phase.
After that, I start to apply The Luongo.
Everybody gets two strikes. The Luongo is the third.
Now, let’s look at that incident from the November 2nd, 2023 Woodbury Town Board meeting to walk through each test step.
Context From The Video:
At 49:37 in the above video, Mrs. Teresa Luongo got up and threatened to dox an unidentified person. Saying, “I also have other things too that can blow a lot of people out of the room too, even … maybe arrest records.”
The comment came in response to Maria Hunter — Town of Woodbury Beautification Committee Chair — who got up to speak about emails she had FOIL’ed between then Town Councilwoman, Kathryn Luciani — acting in her capacity as president of We Are Woodbury — and Mrs. Theresa Luongo, acting in her capacity as vice president of We Are Woodbury.
There are two points to know about these emails:
First is that, even back in November of 2023, Mrs. Luciani — perhaps aided by fellow Town Councilmember at the time, Tyler Etzel JR. — falsely claimed the Village and Town of Woodbury were not working together. Mrs. Hunter states, starting at 40:35 in the above video, that Mrs. Luciani is wrong to claim that.
Second is that there was some Mean Girls level shit going on in those emails, directed at Mrs. Hunter by Clovewood Kathryn and Gretchen Wieners (Luongo), according to Mrs. Hunter’s statement.
At this time, it is unknown whether Councilwoman Luongo has ever tried to make fetch happen.
I believe — and it’s just an opinion because you’ll never get an honest answer from Mrs. Katrhyn Luciani — that Mrs. Hunter’s FOIL is the reason Clovewood Kathryn rarely uses her Town provided email, and instead uses her Gmail account to conduct Town business.
This may sound like a minor point—using her Gmail account instead of her Town account—but I want you to remember it. We’ll revisit this in an upcoming story about the IMA and whether or not the Town of Woodbury will suffer the wrath of an Article 78.
It’s also worth knowing because you can FOIL an elected official’s personal email if they are using it to conduct official business. You just need to know what their email address is.
I have been in touch with Mrs. Hunter about the contents of these emails, and I’ll share what I can soon, if I can share anything at all.
I’ve also been in touch with Councilwoman Gretchen Wieners because I wanted to know who she was threatening in the above video. It definitely wasn’t Tyler Etzel Jr., now former Woodbury Town Councilman Tim Finnegan, Clovewood Kathyrn, and Councilman Conspiracy Theories (Brandon Calore.) All are known associates of Luongo.
That only leaves now former Supervisor Burke.
Doxing someone in New York State is (surprisingly) not a crime itself. However, according to a guide published by the City University of New York (CUNY), the act of doxing can be prosecuted in New York under a number of different, related statutes, like harassment.
Councilwoman Gretchen Wieners decided to reply in exactly the way you think she did: “You can’t sit with us!”
“Mr. Mendelson: I only respond to press inquiries from credentialed journalists from established news sources. Thank you and have the weekend you deserve!”
Now, first of all: Hilarious.
Second, “Have the weekend you deserve” sounds like a threat to me. Does it sound like a threat to you? Given that Mrs. Luongo has threatened to dox people, should I call the State Troopers in NY or LAPD over this? Maybe!
Nobody tell these people I’m in West Hollywood and enjoy eating at the Astro Burger off Santa Monica Boulevard every Saturday.
Third: Mrs. Luongo did not reply to my follow-up request that asked if she would prefer to see my press credentials from the Authors Guild and Society of Professional Journalists. I have both.
Fourth: Mrs. Luongo may not want to provide Woodbury residents with the answers they deserve, but I did make sure to put another journalist in touch with her. This was not only for my inquiry but also for the inquiry involving whether or not she and Clovewood Kathryn took a town-supplied vehicle for a joyride down to Atlantic City. I wonder if Councilwoman Wieners counts News 12 as an established news source.
(And yes. We’ll talk about the alleged joyride taken by Clovewood Kathryn and Councilwoman Gretchen Wieners to Atlantic City in an upcoming story too. I am waiting on an OPRA request — New Jersey’s FOIL equivalent — that would confirm the vehicle was driven down to Atlantic City. I’m really hoping someone from New Jersey writes me back with the headline, “Get in Loser, we’re going shopping.”)
Let’s Get To The Test Questions
So, is Deputy Supervisor Luongo an asshole? Well, threatening to dox someone at a Town Board meeting on, like, a Thursday night or whatever it was when you could be doing literally anything else would count, I think.
The fact that she even went and found whomever’s arrest record and threatened to release it to win an election for Town Board speaks for herself. This ain’t exactly Congress, you know?
I mean, she voted for Trump, right? So she also voted for a dude, at least twice, who is a convicted felon. That’s not a political statement. He was factually convicted of a crime.
So I don’t get why someone’s arrest record would matter or why you would threaten to release it … Unless you’re an asshole.
Keep in mind too: I don’t think people even care about that stuff anymore. There is a very google-able court case involving Tim Mitts called USA V. Timothy Mitts that any of the 6,000 or so people who voted for him could have searched for. They didn’t. They still voted for him anyway.
Is Deputy Supervisor Luongo in a position where she can harm someone? Yes. Just after that meeting, Luongo became an elected councilwoman and, as I mentioned, Deputy Supervisor. She 100% qualifies as a public figure.
Have her decisions harmed Woodbury residents? Yes.
For example, Mrs. Luongo voted to make Clovewood Kathryn the highest-paid Supervisor in the history of the Town of Woodbury, despite the job being a part-time gig. This came during a time when many Southern Orange County residents are barely able to afford groceries, let alone much else.
Mrs. Luongo also voted to overturn the Town’s current Ethics Code to allow any Town Board member to hire their kid, like Clovewood Kathryn did. In fact, this was explicitly the reason for the Ethics Code change.
That takes a job opportunity away from the public, who by the way funds the local government, and allows your elected officials to hire their family. You know what that’s called? Double taxation. Now you’re paying to fund the government, the salary of your elected official (Luciani), and a member of Luciani’s family (in this case, her son.) Councilwoman Luongo voted for that change.
She’s also stormed out of at least two Woodbury Village Board meetings, dunking her water bottle like she’s Hakeem Olajuwon. Both incidents have been caught on video and you can even here the Mayor comment on it in one of them. If she’s a danger to the trash can, who knows what she’s capable of? As you know by now, both the Woodbury Public Library Board President, Cathy Schmidt, and Councilman Brandon Calore, have verifiably assaulted people and faced zero consequences.
Is this person’s actions harming others without good faith debate or discussion?
Multiple residents have called out Luongo for making faces at them, especially during the large turnout for the ethics law change.
According to her statements in the video, Maria Hunter's emails suggest that Luongo and Luciani actively badmouthed her.
The last time I published a story about Councilwoman Gretchen Wieners, she posted on Facebook that I was “ruthless” and “evil.” (She was half-right, but still!)
This doesn’t sound like someone engaging with the public in a way that even remotely demonstrates good faith.
Like Clovewood Kathryn, Councilwoman Gretchen Wieners has referred to any criticism of herself and the Town Board as rumors or gossip posted online, so much so that she once read a statement on the dais about it.
Woodbury’s Town Board is a sinking ship, and I do kind of wonder how long it’ll be until they all turn on each other. You know, just like in the movie?
“Why should Caesar just get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar, right? Brutus is just as smart as Caesar, people totally like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar, and when did it become okay for one person to be the boss of everybody because that's not what Rome is about! We should totally just STAB CAESAR!”
So, that’s how Councilwoman Gretchen Wieners failed The Luongo, where the test got its name, how it works, and how you can and should apply it.
The world’s going to need a whole lot more journalists, and I’m not going to be doing this stuff forever.