Given
that your Piermont Village Hall government has so condescendingly now referred
to your “confusion” over Piermont land-use issues in classic blame-the-victim
fashion, I figured, well, why not just go all the way with their patronizing
prose and actually translate each item of their today social media "press release" for you, the Piermont resident. You see, that way, we can make sure that you understand all those big
complicated words they are saying:
This
below translation is provided to you as a public service by “Unhand Piermont!”
and “Get Your Hands Off Of Piermont”:
What
follows are individual textual passages from Piermont Village Hall today, each identified
as “FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK”, then translated for you immediately
thereafter in text identified as “TRANSLATION FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE”:
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- - - -
“There
has recently been some confusion in our community, and we wanted to take the
opportunity to try and clarify a few things to our residents”.
TRANSLATION
FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
“Notice
that the first thing Piermont Village Hall does with this 'press release' is
blame you, the unenlightened, uneducated Piermont resident, as the
victim. It is your confusion that made you adversely react to a sketchy New
Jersey real estate developer with an awful past NJDEP environmental track
record, using a non-existent New Jersey 'Limited Liability Company' to threaten
to pave-over a former gasoline station which had used one or more underground gas tanks,
all to enable an ugly 14-unit Motel 6 monstrosity to be dropped right smack in
the middle of your historic and once-beautiful Village so as to destroy its
flood-patterns, traffic, and character forever. That was your confusion,
and in no way was our own moral confusion serving on the Village Board,
Planning Board, and ZBA. It’s you, not us”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“In
Piermont, all our Boards are composed of residents just like you, who serve for
little or no compensation except the gratification of having contributed to the
betterment of our wonderful community. We all share the love of this special
place, our rich and storied history, our connection with the river, creek, and
marsh, and the vibrance of nature in our numerous parks and paths. We all walk,
ride, and drive our streets daily, and take pride in being a part of such a
special community”.
TRANSLATION
FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
“Yeah,
sure, we’re ‘just like you’. Just pretend that we are not an eminently-corruptible soft government. Ignore that we are answerable only to wealthy individuals like
Phil Griffin, and to out-of-state monied interests seeking to defile your
Village and homes permanently - because after all, most of us are just volunteers,
and you cannot seriously expect to hold us to any professional standard
comparable to that to which paid professionals are beholden, right? Maybe if we
repeat the words and phrases 'river, creek, and marsh', 'vibrance of nature', and 'pride'
a sufficient number of times, you will actually forget how we are forging ahead
with the 447-477 Piermont Avenue project while totally concealing from you any
soil-testing or tank-seeking activity, and while totally disregarding and
disrespecting the lawful process whereby Rockland County itself and other governmental
agencies must weigh-in and decide if the 447-477 Piermont Avenue development-of-horror
is acceptable”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“None
of us want to see that lost, and yet we must acknowledge that long term trends
require us to evolve to survive”.
TRANSLATION
FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
“Long-term trends require that our own retirements be fully-funded, particularly with
all the unexpected inflation - and typically the prospect of various perks and ego-strokes along with hoped-for cash in the envelope at the end of the sequence will count to us far much more than
any of you peon residents ever will”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“In
the coming years, as climate change marches inexorably upward and into our
community, we will need to adapt and find new ways to allow our Village to
thrive. To meet this challenge, and after years of securing funding, in 2023 a
group of volunteers, with the assistance of a planning consultant, formed our
Comprehensive Plan Committee to examine these challenges and opportunities with
our residents. That Committee is currently working on a draft of the report,
and we hope to have it finalized early this summer. We appreciate all the input
and feedback that our residents shared during our community outreach and have
worked diligently to incorporate everyone’s perspectives. This plan will
outline steps we should pursue to update our zoning and codes in a manner that
supports our residents and business community into the uncertain future. An
example would be permitting higher total building height to allow for elevation
above flood zones as it becomes required, but there are many considerations
besides flooding, such as preservation of green spaces”.
“Yeah,
but you will also notice that we thereby put all flooding remediation efforts
into a deliberate stall, when they should have instead been undertaken on an
emergency basis... Why?... Because we would hate to see 'Piermont Developers
Limited Liability Company' and its gravy-train of vendors lose even one cent of
ill-gotten profit due to what all you crybaby residents have been complaining
to us about for months”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“50
years ago, we were a blue-collar community of modest homes in the shadow of an
expiring factory, with minimal zoning limitations. In our next chapter, we saw
the factory replaced with upscale development, and a gentrification of existing
housing stock, as well as the introduction of new zoning restrictions.”
TRANSLATION
FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
“In
other words, we knew full well from the beginning that Piermont sits on
environmentally-compromised real estate including a nearby SUPERFUND site, and we made absolutely sure that those facts would never stand in the way of generating exorbitant returns for the greedy out-of-state
'developers' with respect to whom we are sycophants and supplicants”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“Some
of these restrictions prohibited the construction or reconstruction of
buildings identical to existing structures, so we retained a professional
planner to guide us in addressing those issues. The recommendation of the
planner was to create a new zoning district called Central Business Multiuse,
encompassing a portion of our main street that was largely filled with
structures constructed prior to our zoning laws, which did not conform to existing
zoning restrictions”.
TRANSLATION
FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
“The
fact is, we had to hire a professional planner and pay that planner with your
money, because we ourselves had no freaking idea amongst ourselves what we were actually
doing when taking office. We only took office to better and promote ourselves and
our own selfish interests, and to continue to call ourselves 'government officials' out of our
own self-conceit”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“The
recommendation was made that we reduce the density allowed by right to 80% of
the preexisting structures for new construction, and also create a way to allow
first floor residential instead of requiring commercial. Both of these changes
reduced or eliminated the non-compliance of many of the existing historical
structures in the new district, where first floor residential use and FARs
exceeding 100% already existed. After consultation with our Planning Board,
referral to relevant agencies for comment, and a Public Hearing, our Village
Board accepted the planner’s recommendations, and enacted the new zoning
district to facilitate updating and improving existing structures, and the
possibility of development of new structures in keeping with the character of
the community and architecture of neighboring structures”.
“The
fact is, we rammed through a new zoning district in willful disregard of the
interests of all of you residents, in willful disregard of the health and
safety of the Village population, and in willful disregard of what other governmental
agencies with actual jurisdiction would otherwise determine. And we almost got
away with it until a few of you woke up. Now, go back to sleep and let us
finish looting and pillaging what is left of the natural resources of this
once-proud Village”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“It
has never been the intention of any of our Boards, or the CBM district, to
facilitate overdevelopment…”
TRANSLATION
FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
“If
you believe that, then at best you are too stupid to drive a motor vehicle and
you need to turn in your Drivers License to the West Haverstraw DMV, by mail,
immediately”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“…
but rather redevelopment that matches the types of structures that give our
downtown its’ unique character and charm”.
TRANSLATION
FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
“Aside
from the fact that we do not know the difference between it’s, its, and its’[sic],
we think that the disgusting Motel 6 proffered by Piermont Developers Limited
Liability Company a few weeks ago in Village Hall, matches downtown Piermont
perfectly – in the same manner as the Taj Mahal matches downtown Newark at
night”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“We
need to come together as a community to work to ensure that we can build on our
strengths and develop responsibly, and we would like to clarify that this is an
ambition we share”.
TRANSLATION
FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
“Would
you please stop attacking us at Village meetings and on social media?... Because
it is now really getting in the way of our facilitation of obscene profits for
sketchy out-of-state developers and our cronies who were in on the initial fix”.
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- - - -
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK:
“We
welcome your input, as do all our Boards, and are taking steps such as moving
public comment up on our meetings agendas to find better ways to help residents
get involved, informed, and engaged with Village affairs. We work for you, our constituents. It’s tough
work, and sometimes thankless, but that is what we have taken an Oath to do,
and what we try to do every day”.
TRANSLATION
FROM THE ORIGINAL SLEAZY SMALL-TIME POLITICIAN-SPEAK INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
“Yeah,
and it’s really tough work once we are caught selling-out all your interests,
after unopposed elections made us think that we could get away with it. But we think you are sheep, and we will do it again until you find a way to stop us”.
Thank
you,
Bruce
Tucker, Mayor
Mark
Blomquist, Deputy Mayor
Rob
Burns, Trustee
Nathan
Mitchell, Trustee
Michael
Wright, Trustee
