We’re back with a new podcast. Just a quick note that if you want to be able to listen to the podcast in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you need to be a paid subscriber to The Monroe Gazette; however, you can still listen to the episode here for free by clicking on the play button above. Paid Subscribers also get access to our Private Facebook Group here.
Quick note about the Democracy Rocks August 17th event. It is SOLD OUT … But. You can buy tickets at the door the day of the show. Email indivisiblehurleywoodstock@gmail.com for more information.
Full Transcript Of This Week’s Podcast
(The following transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.)
Pictured Above: Woodbury Town Councilwoman Gretchen Weiners, Town Councilman (and Mayoral Candidate) Brandon Calore, and Woodbury Town Supervisor Kathryn Luciani at a recent campaign fundraiser.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of The Monroe Gazette podcast coming at you from the George Carlin Memorial Podcast Studio. I'm your host, BJ Mendelson.
We have a great interview coming up with Zahava Wilson. Zahava is the committee leader for Indivisible Hurley / Indivisible Woodstock. So, you know, the same way we have an Indivisible chapter down here in Monroe, we also have a bunch of them all over New York State. So I'm gonna do my best to highlight some of the activities of the ones within the Hudson Valley, just so we can learn a bit more about them.
We're gonna get right into our story real quick, because it's less of a story and more of a letter that we sent to the Town of Woodbury attorney, Rory Brady.
I'm reading it just because there's a lot going on here, and it really could have been, and probably should be, a story of its own.
But the Town of Woodbury, as you're about to hear, is obstructing a FOIL request, so.
I'm reading this letter to you and we're going to publish it just so you understand what the FOIL request is.
Then, depending on how they respond, that's really going to dictate what this story is because it's either:
Option A: We're going to sue the Town of Woodbury or …
Option B: They decide to process the FOIL and then we'll publish our story based on what the results of that FOIL are.
So we're to get to our interview with Zahava in just a moment. I'm going to read you this letter and without further ado …
Letter To The Woodbury Town Attorney, Rory Brady
[Note to readers: Mr. Brady is the third Town Attorney since the Luciani-Calore Regime took power in January of 2024. He was preceded by Joseph G. Mckay, who left under mysterious circumstances, and Ed Thater. Mr. Thater declined to respond to requests about his departure as the Town Attorney.]
Hi Rory,
Our deadline for response has passed concerning the town's claim that the foil for metadata and email server logs from Mr. Calore are duplicative to our request for records for Mr. Calore’s specific communications with Mr. Cioffi and the company CIOFFI.
[And just by way of background for people listening to us. Brandon Calore is a Woodbury town board member. He's also running for mayor of Woodbury. He is also employed by a company known as CIOFFI. And CIOFFI is important for the Monroe Gazette because they do a lot of construction work for South Blooming Grove.
So there's a definite connection between CIOFFI and South Blooming Grove. And then there's this question of what Mr. Calore’s relationship is with South Blooming Grove, specifically with Joel Stern and Isaac Eckstein and CIOFFI. CIOFFI is currently being sued by Orange County for allegedly doing illegal construction work through County owned Gonzaga Park.
So there's like an ongoing controversy here concerning CIOFFI, Joel Stern, Isaac Ekstein, and South Blooming Grove.
Then you've got this guy running for mayor in Woodbury, who's kind of stuck in the middle of it. So everything Brandon Calore says and does is kind of interesting and important because one of reasons we started The Monroe Gazette was to cover South Blooming Grove because a lot of people just weren't. A lot of Woodbury residents, for years now, have insisted Woodbury was “The Next South Blooming Grove.” Those concerns make Mr. Brandon Calore’s relationship with the South Blooming Grove Brain Trust newsworthy.
And one other thing just to mention about Calore, he's received donations from Scott Ugell, who is a village attorney for South Blooming Grove. He also received a campaign endorsement for the June 2025 primary from the United Jewish Community of Woodbury, which allegedly came at the behest of Isaac Eckstein in South Blooming Grove. Ekstein is the president of the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove. Joel Stern is listed as the Founder of that organization.
So there are these questions here of what is Brandon Calore’s relationship with South Blooming Grove.
So let me get back to the letter …]
“As you might not be aware, Mr. Calore has resumed working for CIOFFI. So the town's claims that there are no phone or email communications on his personal and professional devices and emails with the company or its owner is a bit laughable. Unless Mr. Cioffi and Mr. Calore communicate telepathically, there's a trail somewhere, even if it's in a text message, which we asked for as part of a FOIL request.
So I disagree with the town's position. I believe the metadata request is substantially different as it's requesting all email metadata and server logs that Mr. Calore has sent and received over the last seven months.
I believe this request will reveal at least two instances where Mr. Calore lied in signing a public officer's law certification, as well as reveal potential wrongdoing that should be referred to the Orange County Board of Ethics.”
[And just again, this is me stepping outside the letter. So the town of Woodbury does not have a ethics board. So in Orange County, if you are a municipality like South of Blooming Grove or Woodbury, if you don't have an ethics board, then the Orange County ethics board has oversight.
And the Orange County ethics board also has oversight for something like Monroe. And so, you if you read our last post, we covered how the town of Monroe ethics board is like packed with Tony Cardone friends.
They've never actually issued an adverse ruling against Tony Cardone.
And so the Orange County ethics board, my understanding anyway, is that they have oversight over the local ethics boards as well. So that's, that's what's going on here.]
“Mr. Calore claims not to have any records or documents concerning our requests concerning both the town and village IMA discussion and any interactions with CIOFFI.”
[And so here we have, when you do a FOIL request, one of the things you're supposed to ask for is a POLS certification, which is just the town official and the town clerk signing a statement saying, you know, they did a diligent search for the records that you requested.
What we have at the Monroe Gazette are two of these certifications signed by Calore.
And we also have two emails from him where he's telling the town clerk, I have nothing, which we know one of them is already a lie, right?
Because we have other town records concerning the IMA where Calore was copied on them. So we've already caught him once. And so this request is looking to see if he's done it again.]
The Luciani-Calore Regime’s Lack of Transparency
“This town board has demonstrated its desire to not answer questions from the public during public comment, moved locations of the town board meetings, and often doesn't list its new location on its website.
[Or if you look at the July 2025 in the know, you'll see that Supervisor Luciani just provides the time, but not the location.]
“… Moved the time in the meetings earlier in evening when most Woodbury residents are just getting home. And that was all something that was done at the objection of town residents.”
[the Monroe Gazette is covering that story as to why exactly the Woodbury town board decided to move abruptly. There's still not a clear answer as to why they did it. The town board claims that the landlord wasn't living up to their obligations. The landlord denies that. Other officials in Woodbury also suggested that the town's claims are false. We don't really know what the truth is there, so we haven't wrote that story just yet. Going back to our letter …]
“… Time is also restricted to three minutes despite the sparse attendance and sparse agenda items. Questions are not answered by reporters nor are they answered when asked by residents. For example, Town Supervisor Luciani claimed a question related to the potential misconduct by town board member Calore involving CIOFFI was not town business. So residents and reporters will have to assume that town business is only what Mrs. Luciani says it is.”
[I should probably explain here, I apologize, I keep like stepping out of the letter, but this is all, I think it's all important to know because there's this big ongoing discussion we're hearing about public comment. Now, over in South Blooming Grove, they took public comment away, which is something they, Woodbury, can also do. And I have a feeling if it wasn't an election year, this town board would absolutely take public comment away, but they probably won't because they know it's an election year. And if they do, then everyone running against them, and there's a bunch of people running against them, should and will absolutely campaign on that.
So you can't ask questions at a town board meeting because this town board likes to claim grievance and victimhood every single time you ask them a question. And that's similar over in Monroe too, right?
You can't question what the town of Monroe board (Houle-Cardone-Scancarello) does because the second you do, it's victim hood, it's grievance, it's complaints, or it's a lot of like, they do that Trump thing where like he will say something that he is doing as if you're doing it. And that's something that I've observed very frequently happening with both the town board in Monroe and this particular town board in Woodbury.
So let's get back to the letter …]
Attempts At Chilling A Reporter’s First Amendment Right
“This town board has, as I've shared with you, defaulted to anti-Semitic attacks on myself and often utilizes sock puppet accounts to harass myself, town residents, and other public officials using names like Nat Bedford, which is alleged to be Mr. Calore’s campaign manager, Elias Cunningham.”
[A lot of Woodbury residents think Nat Bedford is Elias because he, Nat, made some weird reference to his Italian grandmother, which people know Elias has. But again, there's no proof to suggest that he is Nat Bedford other than the posts sounding very similar. If you were to go and read like a Nat Bedford post and one of Mr. Elias's unhinged posts you’d see the similarities. Also: Nathan Bedford Forest is the founder of the KKK. So, if it IS Mr. Elias Cunningham running the Nat Bedford account, it’s probably worth asking Brandon Calore why he’s ok with his campaign manager cosplaying as the founder of the KKK.]
“Robin Spiegel, Mr. Calore’s top individual campaign donor outside of his family, Pinchus Glauber, confessed to being Robin Spiegel.
[You should know that Mr. Pinchus Glauber has declined to respond to requests for comments on the matter. And Mr. Calore claims that he's unaware of Robin Spiegel's true identity.]
“And then there’s Denise Chance. The identity is unknown beyond its clear connection to Mr. Calore. If you go and look at the Denise Chance profile, you'll see that it's following the Calore campaign.”
[And just by the way, I did a post about this elsewhere, but I didn't mention it on the Gazette. Denise Chance is actually a murder victim in Ohio. It's a cold case from about 30 years ago. So regardless of whether or not the Denise Chance character is a Calore campaign sock puppet, it is definitely a Woodbury resident because they were dumb enough to say so.
And it's kind of distasteful that a Woodbury resident, who clearly supports Mr. Calore — whether or not they're part of the campaign is unknown — is using a murder victim's name to hide behind.
So if you see the Denise Chance character pop up, you should know, hey, that's a 30 year old unsolved cold case that this person is using the murder victim's name to hide behind.]
“I believe that the town's behavior has fostered climate of fear, hostility and retaliation. One employee was recently fired at the insistence of the town supervisor for making critical comments about her. Multiple town board members have resigned as well as multiple town employees. It's easy to lose track over how many people, for example, have resigned from the Woodbury Animal Shelter, but I have no doubt that someone is counting.
The town of Woodbury's insistence on not fulfilling this FOIL request is infringing on my First Amendment right as both an area resident and as a reporter.
And the attempts by Mr. Calore through the use of these sock puppets are meant to have a chilling effect on my speech.
To Quote Mr. Calore …
[ And just again, background, I, of course, you know, every time we publish a story, you have to talk to the people that you're writing about. And so we went and we asked Mr. Calore about Denise Chance and Nat Bedford and Robin Spiegel. And, you know, I said to him that you can't, if you are a sock puppet account on Facebook, you know, you may think you're anonymous, but someone could go to court with like a John Doe lawsuit and compel Facebook to overturn that information provided to you. And so Mr. Calore’s response was …
“ You see, I want you to go full discovery and then we'll find out all your little secrets too. Go get your lawyers and whatever else you want to do. I really want you to proceed with legal action. I have nothing to hide, but from my sources, you certainly do. “
And just by the way, anytime someone says “I have nothing to hide”, they absolutely have something to hide.
He goes on to say,
“Now I have questions for you. Does your chin hurt from falling down the ladder of life? You claim to be a best-selling author, you claim a lot. Now you're just an internet troll who allegedly lurks outside grocery stores. And while I spend time with my family and friends, I also loop in your head 24 seven.”
[And you guys should know that Mr. Calore sent this to me on a Saturday morning. So if he has the full and active life that he claims to have, I seriously doubt that I would be getting these responses on a Saturday morning. ]
“So given that Mr. Calore has dared me to pursue legal action against himself and the town, I'm writing to encourage you as the town attorney to speak with our attorney at your earliest convenience.
I will also be submitting a new series of FOIL requests this week.”
So that's the letter.
Again, we don't know what direction this story will go in.
We’re gonna see how the attorneys communicate, and either the Town of Woodbury will fulfill the FOIL request, or if they don't, we will sue them.
We've talked before ,about doing this with the IMA and the town obstructing the FOIL requests.
So we talked about potentially suing the town and then, you know, we kind of backed off from it because we got the documents that we asked for.
And so this is another instance where the town is opening itself up to a lawsuit, which we do not want to do because it costs taxpayers money.
But …
If this particular town board is doing something wrong, it's our job to report on it. And if they're doing something wrong, and they're making you pay to cover up the fact that they're doing something wrong, that too is a story.
I don't know if we'll necessarily be able to unmask the sock puppets within a FOIL lawsuit.
I think that's a little out of bounds for a FOIL lawsuit. But we might also concurrently file what's called a John Doe lawsuit.
And what that does is, like I mentioned, the John Doe lawsuit is something that you go to court and get a judge. And then the judge says, OK, you've got evidence here to compel Facebook to provide that information.
And so what we might do here is we would file a John Doe lawsuit with the idea that Robin Spiegel, Denise Chance, and Nat Bedford are all working with or for Mr. Calore.
Or there's always the off chance, because we're not sure with Denise whether or not you know, that's another town board member.
And if we find out that it is a Town Board member, or it's, you know, that it is associated with Mr. Calore, then that becomes part of like the larger lawsuit.
So there's a lot to find out.
There's a lot to parse, but I want to let you know, we're always transparent here.
I do enjoy the fact that Mr. Calore is apparently running scared because for a long time, he did not respond to anything that we said.
And now all of a sudden, he's very communicative, which means that our job to report on what he's doing is clearly working.
So, I'm sorry, that was a long tangent, but that's what's going on with Woodbury. We'll now go to our interview with Zahava Wilson. And I will see you soon with another interview this week.
Interview With Zahava Wilson of Indivisible Hurley/Woodstock
BJ Mendelson: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your organization.
Zahava Wilson, Indivisible Hurley: Okay, so my name is Zahava. I started Indivisible Hurley/ Woodstock after the 2024 presidential election because I was so mortified with the results of that presidential election.
We in Hurley. I was the head of the voter outreach for the Hurley Democratic Committee and we in Hurley had such an active outpouring of volunteerism and Ulster County in general did, for that election. And we had such high energy, such positivity. So many volunteers and when we knocked on doors everyone was on board, ‘yeah we're voting, we're voting up and down the ticket, Democrats.’ And so we won every race in Hurley except for the presidential race and it was just devastating.
So I went on an Indivisible National Meeting right away in November and there was already over three thousand people on that call and some people couldn't even get on because it was was filled to the max and I was really inspired by what Ezra Levin had to say.
I just right away started a local chapter. I reached out to Sarah Reeske, the Upstate head of the New York Indivisible Project, and to Lin Sakai, head of the Ulster County Indivisible Chapter. And I asked, should I take all of our people and join the already formed group or start our own?
And they both said unequivocally to start our own because that's how we draw more people in by getting more local people and that is exactly what's happened.
We keep gaining more people and a lot of people had no idea what Indivisible was and we really wanted to bring in people who maybe weren't so political, we're just very, very unhappy with those [election] results. And more and more people are seeing what is going on in this country and wanting to do something.
BJ Mendelson: Was there something specific about the possibility of the Trump administration that sort of stood out to you that you wanted to make sure that you addressed?
Zahava: Do you mean what was it about the Trump administration that was so upsetting?
BJ: For example, for me, it was that at a lot of the rallies, people were holding up signs saying “mass deportations now.” So after he was elected, I said, OK, this is the kind of thing that is un-American and we should not allow. That's sort of what inspired me to act. I'm curious if there was like a specific trigger or issue where you were like, okay, this is this is the thing?
Zahava: Yeah, I think for me personally, we saw who he was and what his intentions were his first term. And I knew about Project 2025. It was sickening to me what they were proposing. And we were literally knocking on doors and we had a sheet with with listing what Project 2025 was proposing and it was so egregious that people who saw it didn't believe it. Even Democrats didn't believe it.
So I knew what was coming down the pike, the inhumanity of these attacks on immigrants, the complete capitulation to the billionaire class think it was those two things. I knew what was coming down the pike in terms of taking away services for the vulnerable and attacking the immigrant communities.
So it was those two things.
BJ Mendelson: What's it like at your stand-up events, at your local events? What's been the response?
Zahava: I guess I would answer that by saying that we are finding that people are so grateful to have a place where they can take their anger, their fear, feeling of isolation, their frustration, and a place where they can act and also a place that they have like-minded people so they don't feel alone.
When we started the group, that was one of the major things that we heard when we went around and asked people why they were here, why they joined, it was their feeling of isolation and being alone in this dark time. So I think that was a big …
That was a big draw and that was a feeling that we got is, we can, instead of feeling desperate and powerless, we can come together and together we can create power. We can, as individuals we're not, we don't have so much power, but together we can make a huge difference.
Democracy Rocks, August 17th In Woodstock, New York
BJ Mendelson: And that's a good segue to talking about the event on August 17th, Democracy Rocks. So I hoping you can tell us a bit more about it, what's going on, what's planned for the event, and how people can attend?
Zahava: Yeah, okay. So that was born out of, at one of our meetings, one of our members, Andrea Stern, just came up with this idea to do a concert. She said there's such a, you know, we need, she said we need inspiration, we need joy, we need something for people to look forward to and feel good about. And everybody at the meeting just immediately joined in and came on board with that idea. And so that's how it was born.
And when we reached out to musicians, when we reached out to speakers, when we reached out to ask for certain volunteers, right away every single person responded, yes, absolutely. Just unequivocally, we had yes responses again and again and again.
People really wanted to contribute and make this happen. And so the buzz is growing and we've already sold out half the tickets, all the reserve seating's already sold out. So the idea is really to bring people together for something positive and really spark more of a movement through joy and unity and optimism.
[Editor’s note: We recorded this interview before I got sick, so between when we recorded it and when it aired, the event is sold out. BUT. Tickets will still be available at the door the day of the show. Email indivisiblehurleywoodstock@gmail.com for more information.]
BJ: It's really speaking to the history of our region. But you know, the first thing when I saw Democracy Rocks, Woodstock, New York, I was like, oh, this is exactly calling back to the history of our region of political activism, which, you know, yeah, so I see some of the special guests. I see some of the performers. Can you just let us know a little bit about, you know, someone who is speaking and someone who's performing?
Zahava: Okay, so we have Kate Pierson of the B-52s performing and she is another person who right away said, yes, she's one of our … Kate lives in Hurley and she has fame as being a really very, very well known rock band in the 80s, 90s.
Then we have Gal Ann Dorsey who played with, who was the bassist for David Bowie and a lot of other really big name groups, the Indigo Girls. I'd have to look up the other bands she's been in, but she's been in a number of really well-known bands. And then Larry Campbell, Guy Davis, and then one of our local performing groups is The Bob Cats.
BJ Mendelson: That's awesome. And so in terms of speakers, also have a really, you have a state assembly member, you've got an Ulster County executive, you've got representatives from NYCLU. So like who is someone that you're really excited about hearing from at that event?
Zahava: You know, to be honest, I'm really excited about every one of those speakers. They're all just doing such great work. We were thrilled that Sarahana Shrestha, a New York State Assembly member, was willing to come on. She has a really big following, especially of young, progressive people, which we need. We need to build that coalition Jen Metzger is our county executive. She's incredible. She's doing a great job and she's really an inspiring speaker. The other speakers that you mentioned are also really doing great work for immigration, doing great work for Planned Parenthood, all of those things that are at risk right now. Not only at risk, they're being attacked.
BJ Mendelson: And so a lot of people will wonder, so there's the tickets right now, reserve seating is sold out. So general admission, it's $30 in advance or $35 day of. And so people might want to know, okay, well, what are you gonna put the money towards? And I saw on the flyer something that I thought was pretty great, which is … I'm a big believer in billboards.
And it's something that we see nationwide from Indivisible and other groups that they've used really, really effectively these pro-democracy billboards so was just hoping you might pull tell us a little bit more about that
Zahava: So the idea of the billboard will be that it's on one of the very busy roads. as I'm sure you know, our region gets a lot of tourists, a lot of people come up for the summer. And then they come up for the fall, the leaf keeping, and then for winter, for skiing. So we have a lot of people coming up to our region to engage in our beautiful Hudson Valley.
And so this billboard would be on the major road going into our area. And it will be a pro-democracy statement. We want to find one that's really, really impactful without being alienating. And so we're working on the exact right words and something that will really not only catch people's eye and make a difference to them, but then they will possibly want to go search for their own indivisible group.
BJ: And so where can we get in touch with you? So I know it's indivisiblehurleywoodstock.org and indivisiblehurleywoodstock@gmail.com.
Where else can they go for information on the event?
Zahava: We have a Facebook page for the democracy rocks concert if they look that up they'll find that they can also go to the colony page and they can also go to our facebook page in addition to our website they can go to our Facebook page.
BJ: And my last question is really, is there anything that I didn't ask that you'd like to highlight or let people know about?
Zahava: Yes, I would just like to say that if you are someone who has not been very political, and you're not happy with what's going on, and you want to do something or even if you just want to be part of the community, then reach out to your local Indivisible group. It's an incredible resource. The National Indivisible has so much information and the idea is just to keep drawing more and more people into our fold. And you don't have to be from any kind of political affiliation. You just have to not want what's happening to our fellow community members who are really being …
What's happening to our fellow community members is just horrendous and that's not who we are as a country.
And I think the majority of the country does not want this.
So if you are someone who feels that way, don't feel alone. Take that outrage and put it, bring it here to us and we will gladly welcome you into our fold.
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