With No Mayor, Who Do You FOIL in South Blooming Grove?

The Monroe Gazette beat South Blooming Grove in court this week. So here's what next on our search for answers.

So, I think we’ve beaten this dead horse enough. But to reiterate, if you want things to change, not just on the local level but also on the State and Federal levels, there’s an easy thing you can do. All you have to do is agree, right now, to hold every elected official and government employee to the same standard of accountability.

It doesn’t matter if it’s your local Woodbury Animal Shelter — Operated by the Town of Woodbury and subsidized, in part, by the Town of Monroe taxpayers through an Intermunicipal Agreement — or the President of the United States.

At the Woodbury Animal Shelter, at least two animals — that we know of — have died under mysterious circumstances. The Town of Woodbury Supervisor then hired her son to work there and changed the Town Ethics Code so that the other Board members could do the same.

Tax Hike Tony (Monroe Town Supervisor Tony Cardone) is now overpaying the Town of Woodbury as part of the inter-municipal agreement to subsidize the ongoing malfeasance of Clovewood Kathyrn’s administration. (Woodbury Town Supervisor, Katrhyn Luciani.) Some of that malfeasance includes the continued mismanagement of the Animal Shelter, which has seen many personnel departures under Luciani.

And with President Trump, well, he just announced plans to turn Gaza into Gaz-a-largo, which is a funny way to say the president has announced his intentions to commit an act of ethnic cleansing. Something his Republican colleagues have tried desperately to walk back after at least one Congressional representative vowed to introduce articles of impeachment.

We keep making this point because the ongoing coup attempt in Washington is similar to what happened in South Blooming Grove. The only difference is its scale.

Joel Stern & Elon Musk Are Doing The Exact Same Thing

-People elected an idiot who promised the world (Kalaj, Trump.)

-That idiot, after getting elected, didn’t keep any of their promises to you. Seriously. No executive order issued by President Trump addresses high prices at the grocery store, at the pump, or inflation itself. If anything, the tariffs he keeps threatening our closest allies with would only make those things more expensive and inflation worse.

Kalaj, when he ran for mayor, promised to address the Village’s long-standing water issues. An issue Kalaj only made worse since getting into office, triggering a federal EPA investigation. South Blooming Grove, under the direction of George Kalaj, Joel Stern, and Isaac Ekstein, has become a mini-Flint Michigan.

-Instead of getting the person you thought you elected, you got a puppet for someone else (Joel Stern & Isaac Ekstein, Elon Musk.) And that person wanted their puppet to do illegal shit. Kalaj fired the entire Village Planning Board at Stern’s behest without cause or notice. Then, they replaced that board with people who — while communicating with Stern and Ekstein during meetings on WhatsApp — rubber-stamped all construction projects regardless of their environmental impact or strain on the Village’s municipal infrastructure.

Musk wants to freeze trillions in federal payments to fund a tax cut only he and other billionaires would benefit from. Just to give you an idea of the scale of what Musk is pushing for here. His puppet, Trump, wants to lower the corporate tax rate to 15%. That would give the 100 biggest corporations a tax cut larger than the entire K-12 budget of the Education Department. You know, the thing “President” Trump wants to dismantle?

(At the time of this writing, neither Tax Hike Tony, Clovewood Kathryn, or the local bigot running for Mayor in Woodbury, have condemned the potential loss of funding to the Monroe-Woodbury School District through President Trump’s executive orders. Neither have alleged Democrats and Woodbury Village Trustees James Freiband and Matthew Fabbro. And in Monroe, neither has Town Board candidate, and convicted Felon, Tim Mitts. The man convicted for financial crimes who now wants you to trust him with managing millions of dollars of taxpayer money.)

-Once in power, the outside person continues to use the government to enrich themselves at your expense. (Stern, by giving construction projects and real estate opportunities to all his friends and donors to the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove. Musk is accessing the government’s payment infrastructure so he can share it with Visa for that new payment system he’s building with them.)

At this point, most people acknowledge what I’ve described here as facts. In the coming days and weeks, more will join them. There are; however, a small group of people who will refuse to do so. You don’t have to worry about most of that group. They’ve been Redpilled. There’s very little you can do to help them. In fact, you shouldn’t even bother to argue with them. People like this guy are the only ones in that small group you need to worry about—the ones who want to be elected to local, state, and federal office. No member of Team Coup should be allowed to have any power over you, whether on the local, state, or federal level.

I share all this with you today because our main story is about where things stand regarding FOIL (New York State’s Freedom of Information Law) in South Blooming Grove.

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First, let’s share some great news: The Monroe Gazette won its first Article 78 lawsuit. All credit goes to our attorney, Amy Lavine, at Liberty Street Legal PLLC.

Coming out of that lawsuit, you’ve already seen a change in South Blooming Grove. They created a FOIL email address to help the Village Clerk manage incoming FOIL requests. We have also had our new FOILs acknowledged by the Village Clerk. (There's nothing like getting caught potentially committing perjury to spur a change in heart, huh?)

Now. Does that mean South Blooming Grove will cooperate with the new FOILs they receive? We don’t know. That’s why I’m sharing the following letter with you here.

While we did win our lawsuit, and they have made what appears to be superficial changes to ensure FOILS are correctly handled, I’m not going to hold my breath.

For example, the letter you’re about to read? I went directly to Village Hall and ensured South Blooming Grove Clerk Kerry Dougherty stamped it as received.

Here’s a photo of Mr. Dougherty stamping the FOIL appeal letter. Just in case she later claims she never received it. Village of South Blooming Grove residents, and others looking to get their FOIL claims processed with the Village should do the same thing. Go to Village Hall. Get your FOIL / FOIL appeal stamped. Take a picture to confirm it was stamped. And then, if you have an attorney like we do, send a voicemail to your attorney confirming the day, date, and time that the Village Clerk stamped the FOIL as received.

Do NOT create an opportunity for Mrs. Dougherty and the rest of the South Blooming Grove team to claim they never received your FOIL request. They’ve been getting away with doing that for nearly four years now. It’s time for that practice to end.

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To Whom It May Concern …

Under normal circumstances, this letter would be addressed to the FOIL Appeals officer, Mayor George Kalaj.

Unfortunately, the Village of South Blooming Grove does not currently have a FOIL Appeals officer since it does not have a duly elected mayor.

According to both the New York State Board of Elections and the Orange County Board of Elections, the responsibility to hold Village elections in South Blooming Grove falls on the Village Clerk, Kerry Dougherty. She failed in her duties to hold an election—as required—in March 2024.

In November of 2024, after residents began asking questions about the missed election, Mrs. Dougherty submitted inappropriately filed paperwork with the Department of State. Specifically, Mrs. Dougherty submitted a resolution, first passed in 2021 but never filed with the Department of State, that extended the term of office for the Mayor of South Blooming Grove and its Village Trustees. Due precisely to Mrs. Dougherty's failure to file this resolution promptly – Seriously, Kerry, what have you been doing for the last three years? — this paperwork was filed long past when the March 2024 election should have been held.

Starting at the December 20th, 2024, Village Planning Board meeting, the Village of South Blooming Grove has been repeatedly informed that its failure to hold an election renders every decision made by the Village Board, Village Planning Board, and Village officials (including Mr. Joel Stern and Mr. Yitzchok "Isaac" Ekstein) null and void.

The first notification was made by local attorney Susan Shapiro at the December 20th, 2024 meeting.

On behalf of the Village, Mr. Ekstein's response to Mrs. Shapiro was to laugh this off. The community group Preserve Blooming Grove captured and recorded this exchange in their recording of the meeting. If needed, I am happy to submit that video into evidence as part of another Article 78 lawsuit and name Mr. Ekstein as a respondent so that he can respond appropriately to this matter.

Given that Mr. Ekstein and Mr. Stern often act as de facto mayors of the Village of South Blooming Grove — with Mr. Kalaj often too busy to attend Village Board meetings himself — Then it's more than reasonable to assume the official Village of South Blooming Grove is "We can do whatever we want."

If there's any doubt about this position, since that December 20th meeting, the Village has repeatedly been informed that its decisions are null and void and has proceeded to ignore them. This includes the proper appointment of a FOIL Appeals Officer.

I am documenting this for two reasons.

First, because a judge will likely wind up reading this email and I want him or her to know that the Village has been told they have proceeded to act outside the bounds of the law and did not act — in any way shape or form — to address the matter.

• No public comment has been made by the "Mayor," the Village Trustees, the Village Attorney, the Village Clerk, or the Village Employees (Stern, Ekstein) about the failure to hold this election.

• No public comment has been made from any of the above-identified parties to address the legal ramifications of failing to do so.

• The Village continues to be informed that its actions are null and void and, in some instances, outright illegal. (See: the planned use of eminent domain for the property at 8 Mangin Road.) The Village of South Blooming Grove, beyond any reasonable doubt, has proceeded to operate in an inappropriate, illegal, and potentially criminal way.

• Mr. Scott Ugell, the Village Attorney who should be advising the Village and helping his clients address these matters, has repeatedly failed to address them or answer questions when Village residents ask them to clarify the situation.

Second, on January 28th, 2025, the Village and its attorneys—including Laura M. Gulfo of Monaco Cooper Lamme and Carr—were asked to clarify this situation concerning whom to appeal FOIL responses to.

In an email sent to the newly established FOIL@VOSBG.com email address, Mrs. Gulfo, along with Village Attorney Scott Ugell, Village Clerk Dougherty, and "Mayor" George Kalaj — as witnessed by News 12's Blaise Gomez and my attorney, copied here — were asked to address whom FOIL appeals should be sent to given the situation. (Note: The establishment of this email was loudly announced at the January 27th, 2025, Village of South Blooming Grove Board meeting.)

So, it strains credibility for any Village official, or their attorney, to claim — one day following the announcement of this new email — that they “did not receive this email” after a large demonstration at the meeting of the newly established FOIL email. This meeting was also recorded by the community group Preserve Blooming Grove, and if needed as part of a Future Article 78 proceeding, it will be submitted to the court as evidence. (It’s also worth noting that this new email address is not at all in compliance with recently passed legislation by Mr. Stern’s “good friend” State Senator James G. Skoufis that requires all municipalities in New York State to use a .gov address to verify their identities when interacting with the public.)

The day before our email inquiry concerning the identity of the FOIL appeal officer was sent, "Mayor" Kalaj sent an email to a South Blooming Grove resident, which was then forwarded to me. This confirmed that the "Mayor" also has no problem sending and receiving emails, despite previous claims to the contrary. We mention this here in the event Mr. Kalaj files another affidavit in court saying “he didn’t get the email” or otherwise claims that the Village of South Blooming Grove’s email system was not working.

So, there is no doubt that Mr. Kalaj received the email requesting clarification as to whom FOIL appeals should be sent to and chose not to reply. Neither did Mr. Scott Ugell, Mrs. Gulfo of Monaco Cooper Lamme and Carr, and Mrs. Dougherty. This failure to respond, I believe, was intentional and delayed the submission of this FOIL Appeal that you are now reading.

So, I'm going to ask simply: How am I, or any New York State resident, supposed to file a FOIL appeal properly in such a situation?

We’re Going To Pretend All Of This Is Normal, Even When It’s Not

The answer is that I can't. I just have to pretend this is normal and acceptable behavior. Any fair-minded justice would agree that it's not. (I say fair-minded here because Mr. Scott Ugell was a former justice before the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct told him to retire as a justice or face legal consequences for his actions in Rockland County.)

So, for the future judge reading this email, that's how I'm going to proceed in the appeal below.

Please weigh South Blooming Grove's continued non-compliance with the law in rendering your decisions in any (very likely) Article 78 proceedings against the Village concerning their responses to the below-identified FOILs.

FOIL #1 Appeal

The first appeal involves a FOIL request submitted on September 24th, 2024, that required the filing of an Article 78 Lawsuit to compel the Village of South Blooming Grove to reply. It took 50 days from the filing of this lawsuit for the Village of South Blooming Grove to provide any sort of response to the FOIL request. 100 days from this first FOIL request.

The Village Clerk, Kerry Dougherty, and later on appeal, the "mayor" George Kalaj, have claimed as part of this lawsuit that they "never got the email." I'm not going to use the word perjury, but I'm going to request that any justice reviewing this email look carefully at the responses provided by the Village of South Blooming Grove in the Article 78 lawsuit, and then at their pattern of behavior as identified in this email.

Then, I’d like to request that the justice(s) ask themselves whether any of these individuals are appropriately complying with the laws of NYS.

FOIL #1 (dated September 24th) requested the following information:

“1. Records detailing the make, model, year, condition, and additional information concerning the three vehicles being donated to the Village of South Blooming Grove by Efroim Halpert that Mr. Stern alleges is worth $250,000 worth of value.”

The Village Clerk, Kerry Dougherty, finally replied saying: "Your Request is denied as the record sought in this Request is not "reasonably described" as is required by Public Officers Law §89(3)(a)."

(A note to Monroe Gazette readers: the Town of Woodbury complied with no problem at all to a similarly worded request for information concerning Town-owned vehicles, and which ones the Supervisor may be joyriding in.)

It should have been clear we were requesting Text Messages, WhatsApp Messages, and email addresses sent to and from Mr. Joel Stern to Mr. Efroim Halpert. If you examine the rest of the requested information, you can see we clearly identified Mr. Stern’s phone number, email address, and made a request that the Clerk conduct a search of his personal and professional devices. So we are reiterating our request that the Village Clerk use the information provided concerning Mr. Stern’s phone number, email (personal and private), text messages, and WhatsApp messages. We also want to reiterate that this FOIL request was submitted on September 24th, 2024 and that Mr. Stern and the Village of South Blooming Grove are legally obligated to preserve records upon request. We do not believe that this happened.

“2. Email and Text records between Mr. Joel Stern and Mr. Efroim Halpert concerning the donation of the vehicles from July of 2024 to 9/25/24. This request encompasses emails sent from Mr. Stern's personal and professional devices, and personal and professional email accounts.

This include texts and WhatsApp messages sent from Mr. Stern's phone number: (Redacted) and Mr. Stern's personal email address: (Redacted)”

The Village Clerk, Kerry Dougherty, finally replied saying, "After a search conducted by the Village, there are no records responsive to this category of request."After a search conducted by the Village, there are no records responsive to this category of request."

The Village Clerk failed to describe the details of their search or explain their definition of the word "diligent." Given the repeated non-compliance with New York State laws and regulations and the pattern of behavior exhibited by the Village of South Blooming Grove, there is little evidence to suggest such a search was conducted at all.

3. Email records between Mr. Joel Stern, from personal and professional email accounts, and Chief Wakeham of the Town of Blooming Grove Police Department concerning this donation from July of 2024 to 9/25/24.

The Village Clerk, Kerry Dougherty, finally replied, "After a search conducted by the Village, there are no records responsive to this category of request. "

We do not believe this to be true. In fact, given Mr. Stern’s public statements that he corresponded with Chief Wakeham, we're almost sure these responsive records exist.

The Village also again failed to describe the details of its search or explain its definition of "diligent search."

Given the repeated non-compliance with New York State laws and regulations and the pattern of behavior exhibited by the Village of South Blooming Grove, there is little evidence to suggest such a search was conducted at all.

Please note that, like the following FOIL responses in this email, I requested a signed POL89(3)(a) certification from both Village Clerk, Kerry Dougherty and Mr. Joel Stern. At the time of this writing, no such certification has been received. At the time of this writing, there was no explanation as to how the search was conducted, what terms were used, and whether or not an IT professional was utilized to find true and correct records of the requested items.

Again. Given the pattern of behavior of South Blooming Grove and its Clerk, we do not believe this response to be a truthful one.

FOIL #2 (dated October 7th) requested the following information:

The following was our original request:

"During the September 19th, 2024 Planning Board meeting, Mr. Joel Stern was caught on camera filming a South Blooming Grove resident on his phone, and then attempting to film her address on the sign-up to comment form. Mr. Stern was observed then searching on his phone for her address.

Mr. Stern was confronted about this and responded when asked why he was filming a local resident and said, "Because I can."

As I'm sure you imagine, this has caused this resident great concern about their health and personal safety.

But what you might not have known is that Mr. Stern, as a Village Employee, filming the resident, and trying to film her address, created a record since he was a government employee doing this while acting in his capacity as such at the Planning Board meeting.

Therefore, I am requesting records (texts, WhatsApp Messages, notes, video, and photos) taken by Mr. Stern during the 9/19/24 meeting between the hours of 7pm and 12am on his phone number (redacted) and any associated records created by Mr. Stern sent from his Village email and Personal email: (redacted) during that time and the next day, on 9/20/24 related to the Planning Board meeting and its attendees."

After filing an Article 78 against the Village of South Blooming Grove, they finally responded on January 2nd, 2025, stating the following: “After a search conducted by the Village, there are no records responsive to this request. "

Please note that, like the following other FOIL responses, I requested a signed POL89(3)(a) certification from both Village Clerk, Kerry Dougherty and Mr. Joel Stern. At the time of this writing, no such certification has been received. At the time of this writing, no explanation as to how the search was conducted, what terms were used, and whether or not an IT professional was utilized to find true and correct records of the items being requested.

Again. Given the pattern of behavior of South Blooming Grove and its Clerk, we do not believe this response to be a truthful one.

Further — and this again applies to all three FOILS being appealed in this email — it's not a "diligent search" if Mr. Dougherty is incompetent and/or does not understand how to search phones and emails properly. It is also not a diligent search if Mr. Joel Stern refuses to cooperate with such requests from Clerk Dougherty.

FOIL law still requires the Village Clerk to provide a real response to such requests as the ones made here.

• Mrs. Dougherty could have found a qualified technology consultant. She did not.

• Mrs. Dougherty could have provided a signed certification that any electronic records — which I want to stress, must legally be preserved upon the filing of a FOIL request asking for them — are true and correct copies and that no other records were found. She did not.

• Mr. Stern has a legal obligation to preserve the records requested via FOIL. It is not clear if he did. In fact, as part of our Article 78, despite being named as a respondent, Mr. Stern chose not to submit an affidavit. He has since claimed not to have any knowledge of this lawsuit.

FOIL #3 (dated September 30th) requested the following information:

The following was our original request:

“1. Records (texts, WhatsApp Messages, emails, notes, and related discussions) concerning Mr. Joel Stern's 8/22/21 meeting with Orange County Legislators Katherine Bonelli and Peter Tuohy, and other parties, wherein Mr. Stern was informed of the hydrogen sulfide problem and its impact on Monroe residents.

Given Mr. Stern's preference to use WhatsApp and otherwise skirt proper rules and regulations in using his personal phones and emails in addition to his village email: JStern@vosbg.com, this request ALSO encompasses emails sent from Mr. Stern's personal email (Redacted) and Phone number: (redacted)

2. Records (texts, WhatsApp messages, emails) sent from personal and professional devices by Mr. Stern at his personal and professional email and phone number (as identified above) from 1/1/21 to 9/30/24 to Village Engineer Al Fusco Jr, Village Planner Tom Shepstone, Stern's "good friend" Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus, Orange County environmental Facilities and services Erik Denga, Orange County Department of Public Works Anthony Griffin, Brian Smith of the Moodna Sewer District, Michael Zwart, and Mike Dwyer (OC employees) concerning the hydrogen sulfide issues related to the untreated raw sewage knowingly released by Mr. Stern into the Village of Monroe, and the procurement of the ANUE Water Technologies system.

This request should also include any discussion concerning the 2022 pilot program of ANUE's system, the test results of the pilot program, the cost of installing the hardware to further treat the sewage, and any explanation as to why the Village would not pursue or otherwise be interested in installing this hardware given their full knowledge of the sewage problem and related hydrogen sulfide release.

3. Records (texts, WhatsApp messages, emails) sent from personal and professional devices by Mr. Stern at his personal and professional email and phone number (as identified above) from 1/1/21 to 9/30/24 to Al Fusco Jr., Tom Shepstone, and ANUE Water Technologies representatives Joe Kratochvil, Greg Bock, Phani Peddi, and any other representatives that were in touch with him about purchase and installation of the ANUE Water system as well as the pilot program, its test results, and any discussion or explanation as to why, despite full knowledge of the sewage problem and hydrogen sulfide release, the Village opted not to purchase or otherwise utilize this hardware after the pilot study.

4. And finally, I understand the Town of Blooming Grove Supervisor and Building Inspector have sent FOIL requests that the Village of South Blooming Grove refuses to comply with.

The Village of South Blooming Grove Clerk, Kerry Dougherty, finally replied on January 2nd, 2025, with the following after being served with an Article 78 lawsuit: "Your FOIL request dated September 30, 2024, includes requests for records that date back over 3 years ago and in some instances span nearly 4 years. As such, the Village is diligently working to produce responsive documents to your request. To this end, we continue to review responsive documents with respect to privilege and other statutory exemptions and anticipate being able to provide a response to you in approximately sixty (60) business days."

Let's acknowledge this first response before moving on to the second.

Concerning the first response:

So far, we have received only one responsive document, which is almost completely blacked out. There does not appear to be any rhyme or reason for these redactions.

For example, an entire section of the document details problems immediately following the activation of the ANUE Technologies hardware, which demonstrated the poor state of South Blooming Grove’s municipal infrastructure. This was not redacted, but everything else, including what steps—if any—Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein took to remedy the situation, was.

This information is of great public importance, as the unredacted material verifies Mr. Joel Stern was made aware of his contributions to a public health emergency in the Village of Monroe — where the sewage from South Blooming Grove flows — and proceeded to ignore all warning signs about his Village’s contribution to the problem while rapidly approving new construction.

These redactions also appear to have been done arbitrarily and capriciously. For example, Mr. Stern simply saying "Hi" was blacked out from the responsive document provided by the Village.

More importantly, given that Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein serve as de facto co-mayors of South Blooming Grove, their decisions — rendered within the emails blacked out in the Village's FOIL Response — represent final agency determinations that impact the public's health and safety.

• At no point has “Mayor” George Kalaj ever voiced an objection to, or voted against, anything suggested by Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein.

• At no point has Tom Shepstone, the Village of South Blooming Grove Planner, ever voiced an objection to or made a positive SEQRA declaration against any project brought to the Village Planning Board. Documented evidence from Village Planning Board meetings shows that members actively talked to Mr. Ekstein throughout the meetings on WhatsApp. When Village Planning Board attorney, Dan Kraushaar, was asked if there had ever been a positive SEQRA declaration issued by the Village Planning Board since Mr. Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein took over as de facto mayors, he said no. Mr. Kraushaar has also been made aware by Village residents of numerous conflicts of interest possessed by Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein involving projects presented — and then approved by — the Village Planning Board.

• At the August 26th, 2024 Village of South Blooming Grove Planning Board meeting — as captured on video by the community group, Preserve Blooming Grove, Village Engineer Al Fusco Jr. declined numerous times to respond to questions by Village of South Blooming Grove residents. He first said that he would not speak to residents unless the mayor instructed him to do so. Everyone in the room, myself included, believed that Mr. Fusco was referring to George Kalaj. However, it was only after Joel Stern asked Mr. Fusco to speak to the residents that he proceeded to do so.

So we want to reiterate that Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein act as de facto mayors of South Blooming Grove, and that their deliberations and decisions represent final agency decisions. Therefore, their discussions are not protected by the exemptions to the FOIL law.

• We have NO confidence that the Village of South Blooming Grove will release any further documents as stated in their response.

• We have NO confidence that the Village of South Blooming Grove will properly comply with the law when redacting any information.

In fact, as part of our Article 78 lawsuit, we've demonstrated the repeated inability of Village Clerk Kerry Dougherty to provide documents as requested in a timely and efficient manner.

Therefore, we are appealing this response and the decision to redact these documents.

The Village has had months to find and release this information, and their actions indicate they have no plans to actually follow through on releasing the rest of it without us having to take them to court again—which, to be clear, we will.

As with the first FOIL request, we also requested a signed POL89(3)(a) certification from Clerk Dougherty and Joel Stern. As of this writing, we have not received it, nor have we received any explanation from the Village of South Blooming Grove concerning what they define to be a diligent search, and how any such search for these records has been conducted, if it was conducted at all.

Now, let's move to the second response:

On January 27th, The Village Clerk responded in part, "I am happy to report that the Village has completed its diligent search and substantively responds to each of the four (4) requests within your September 30th FOIL request as follows."

As pointed out, we requested a signed POL89(3)(a) certification, but the village clerk has not provided one.

As already pointed out, we have no confidence that a diligent search was conducted, as the Village did not describe how it defines a diligent search.

For example, and as already mentioned, the Village Clerk did not mention whether IT professionals were utilized in retrieving such records or whether the records it provided were true and correct.

We have also mentioned our grave concerns about the arbitrary and capricious nature of the redacted materials received, a point we will reiterate again here.

The redactions are related to a fundamental misunderstanding of the interagency/intra-agency exemption detailed in Public Officers Law section 87(2)(g). We’d like to reiterate that, for all the reasons already mentioned, Mr. Joel Stern and Mr. Isaac Ekstein’s decisions and deliberations represent final agency determinations on behalf of South Blooming Grove. This is verified by the behavior and actions of the Village “Mayor” George Kalaj, Village Planner Tom Shepstone, and Village Engineer Al Fusco JR.

In addition, another exception to interagency/intra-agency claims involves decisions that are “instructions to staff that affect the public.“

The records being requested represent a public health emergency that Mr. Stern had full awareness of — as verified within the records released thus far by the Village — and that Mr. Stern has continued to exacerbate, along with Mr. Ekstein, in their continued push to build on top of crumbling municipal water and sewage infrastructure.

While Mr. Stern has routinely blamed “the shortcomings of previous administrations” in his Blooming Grove Report / United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove newsletter, the documents provided by the Village indicate Mr. Stern’s actions have created a clear and present danger to the health and safety of both Village of South Blooming Grove residents and Village of Monroe residents.

We also note here, in case you don’t believe the hydrogen sulfide issue represents a public health emergency in the Village of Monroe, that the state DEC is currently investigating this matter and that Orange County has recently had to take action on it in January of 2025.

We also mention here that the crumbling infrastructure of South Blooming Grove, particularly the water and sewage issues that contribute to the hydrogen sulfide public safety emergency, is currently under investigation by the federal EPA.

Mr. Stern has publicly denied this, much like he’s denied the existence of the Article 78 we filed, but the EPA has confirmed to both News 12 and The Monroe Gazette that they are actively investigating this public health emergency.

There are additional problems found in the Village’s response.

We requested: "Records (texts, WhatsApp Messages, emails, notes, and related discussions) concerning Mr. Joel Stern's 8/22/21 meeting with Orange County Legislators Katherine Bonelli and Peter Tuohy, and other parties, wherein Mr. Stern was informed of the hydrogen sulfide problem and its impact on Monroe residents."

The Village’s Response: To the extent that this request seeks "discussions", the Village does not offer a response to that portion of the request because it does not seek a "record" as defined under Public Officers Law section 86(4). As to the remaining records requested, after a diligent search conducted by the Village, I hereby certify that there are no records responsive to this request. "

As you can see, we specifically identified the records being requested, the format in which they may appear, and the responsive parties. We believe the Village’s response here is, to be polite, disingenuous.

The Village again displayed its ignorance of FOIL law with the following exchange:

We requested:

"And finally, I understand the Town of Blooming Grove Supervisor and Building Inspector have sent FOIL requests that the Village of South Blooming Grove refuses to comply with.

I am requesting a copy of these requests sent by the Town of Blooming Grove, Robert Jeroloman, and Building Inspector Jeanne Ovensen to Mr. Joel Stern, as well as related records such as emails, texts, WhatsApp messages, and other records sent by Stern on Personal and Professional devices and accounts as identified above related to these requests from the Town dating to 8/1/21 when Mr. Stern was told about the severity of the hydrogen sulfide situation to 9/30/24.”

The Village’s Response: This request does not reasonably describe the records sought. Please provide clarity with respect to which records you are seeking. Kindly email your clarification to FOIL@vosbg.com.

Again, the records being requested are quite specific, and we believe the Village’s response, once again, is disingenuous at best.

We requested the FOIL requests submitted by the Town of Blooming Grove and Building Inspector Jeanne Ovensen to Mr. Joel Stern. We know these responsive documents exist, and the Village has decided to reply and say we did not describe the records being sought. This appeal should serve as a reiteration and clarification of our request, that we seeking the FOIL requests received by the Village of South Blooming Grove's de facto Mayor, Joel Stern, from the Town of Blooming Grove, in whatever form they were sent, including emails, texts, Whats App messages.

In Summary

For all of the reasons provided in this email, we formally appeal the decisions rendered by the Village of South Blooming Grove to FOIL Request #1, #2, and #3.

We request that this appeal be dealt with promptly and timely, which has decidedly not been the case thus far.

We request that this appeal receive a written acknowledgment by the “Mayor” George Kalaj, assuming he is, in fact, the FOIL Appeals Officer. Since the Village failed to clarify this, we can’t say for sure that he is.

Finally, we want to remind the Village of South Blooming Grove, its officials — de facto, unelected, or otherwise — its employees, and its attorney that you have a fiduciary responsibility to ALL of your village residents.

We also wish to remind the attorneys who act as counsel of their professional obligations to report criminal behavior—such as potential acts of perjury—should they be found.

We will not hesitate to bring everyone to court for failing to comply with the applicable laws of New York State.

And we will not hesitate to pursue the maximum penalty under the law to anyone found aiding and abetting criminal behavior.

Treat this appeal and the likely lawsuit, with the seriousness it deserves.