To: All Municipal
Bond Professionals – Wall Street, And Elsewhere
From: John J.
Tormey III, Esq.
Date: Saturday,
August 10, 2024
Re: Village
of Piermont, New York Municipal Bonds - Currently Rated By Standard &
Poor’s.
Distribution:
by web-form and mail: (Fidelity
Investments)
by web-form and mail: (JP
Morgan Private Bank)
by web-form and mail: (Merrill
Lynch Wealth Management)
by web-form and mail: (municipalbonds.com)
I am a New York attorney residing in the Town of
Orangetown and the County of Rockland. I write as a concerned citizen - and as
a known adversary to the Village of Piermont, New York, its current Mayor Bruce
Tucker, and their egregious environmental practices.
The Village of Piermont is also located within the
Town of Orangetown, New York. Piermont used to be the most beautiful and
picturesque of all the Hudson River communities in my view. Through use of a
studiously-opaque village government, though, Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker and
the Village of Piermont government are now in the process of trying to sell-out
the village to shady real estate developers threatening taxpaying residents
with serious environmental harm, when Tucker and the rest of Village Hall really
should be working to remediate the constant flooding in Piermont instead. Some
Piermont residents have even taken to re-building on stilts because of the
flooding.
My request is that bondholders and their
representatives and affiliates please carefully re-examine and re-analyze any
current bond rating upon which they may be relying in connection with Piermont,
New York – and also consider the within information in connection with future
bond purchase decisions. I base this request upon the following specific
reasons, with citations:
Reason #1: Mayor Bruce
Tucker and the Village of Piermont, New York just announced a drastic
six-point-nine percent (6.9%) tax increase after first voting to exceed the
otherwise-applicable tax cap. See “Incorporated Village or Piermont,
Board of Trustees Meeting”, April 16, 2024 Minutes, at:
https://cms9files1.revize.com/piermont/document_center/Agendas%20&%20Minutes/2024/Minutes/BOT%20Meeting%20Minutes%20April%2016%202024.pdf
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/08/watch-as-mayor-bruce-tucker-blows-away.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/08/piermont-do-you-speak-succubus.html
Reason #2: Since Year
2017, Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker has put the Village of Piermont into a
negative Net Position of US$7,600,000+ into the hole - from an original
US$800,000 surplus. Tucker has purposefully redistributed the wealth of
unsuspecting village residents into crushing and overstuffed long-term pension
and other obligations, thereby mortgaging the collective futures of future
generations of Piermont residents:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/07/he-spent-it.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/08/piermont-do-you-speak-succubus.html
Reason #3: In a recent
July 30, 2024 “interview” with well-known local planted propaganda publication
the Rockland County Business Journal (RCBJ), Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker
nevertheless admitted to Piermont’s current financial distress for which he
obviously did not adequately plan:
“‘[E]verything
hit at once’, the mayor said. ‘We’re dealing with sticker shock on insurances,
inflation, [sic] huge retirement mandates by New York State’.”
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/08/piermont-do-you-speak-succubus.html
https://rcbizjournal.com/2024/07/30/piermont-mayor-bruce-tucker-talks-about-controversy-engulfing-his-village/
Reason #4: When
questioned if he would use a portion of a puzzling US$3,210,196 “unassigned
Fund Balance” (presumably) to offset the new and imminent tax hit to Piermont
taxpaying residents, Mayor Tucker replied that he would only be using
US$216,000 of that Fund Balance because, in his words:
“Bond counsel
recommends not to take from the fund balance because it will affect the
Village’s credit rating. [Emphasis supplied]. The credit rating decides the
rate of interest the Village will pay on Bond (Capital) items. Currently the
Villages[sic] S&P rating is AA+.”
See
“Incorporated Village or Piermont, Board of Trustees Meeting”, April 16, 2024
Minutes, at:
https://cms9files1.revize.com/piermont/document_center/Agendas%20&%20Minutes/2024/Minutes/BOT%20Meeting%20Minutes%20April%2016%202024.pdf
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/08/watch-as-mayor-bruce-tucker-blows-away.html
Aside from the fact that Mayor Tucker thereby waived
the privilege of confidential attorney-client communications when he was unwise
and ill-advised enough to read the advice of “Bond Counsel” into the public
record - Mayor Tucker’s own admission of his intentional manipulation of
taxpayer funds to make the bond landscape appear rosier than it actually is,
should be called out and acknowledged as deception by a public official. I ask
that you please review the full text of the above-linked April 16, 2024 Board
of Trustees Meeting Minutes for a full review of Mayor Tucker’s unabashed
artifice in this regard.
Reason #5: Piermont
Village Hall made a recent “decision” to finally release and upload to the
Village of Piermont website, the multiple years’ worth of Village financial
statements which Village Hall had previously sought to conceal from Piermont
residents since Year 2020:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/07/tell-it-to-tom.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/07/pay-no-attention-to-garmento-behind_13.html
https://www.piermont-ny.gov/government/clerks_office/financial_audits.php#outer-452
Reason #6: In similar
vein, Piermont Village Hall purposefully failed to timely file its financial
information with the Office of the New York State Comptroller (OSC), thereby
preventing anyone from ever seeing Piermont’s “Fiscal Score”, “Environmental
Score”, and “Health Designation” for Fiscal Year 2023 in the “Fiscal Stress
Monitoring System” within the Comptroller’s website:
https://wwe1.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/fiscalmonitoring/fsms.cfm
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/07/that-time-when-bruce-tucker-sandbagged.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/07/crouching-tiger-hidden-garmento.html
This apparently has become an unfortunately familiar
tactic by other financially distressed municipalities in Rockland County, New
York.
In summary, it is my belief that, at minimum, the
innocent bondholders and their representatives and affiliates who have relied
upon any prior Piermont bond rating, will want to examine and review the
Piermont Village Hall shenanigans that Piermont residents have suffered through
during the six-and-one-half years of Bruce Tucker’s malignant mayoral reign.
The time to do that is now, before Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker tries to raise their
taxes again, or sells-out the Village to another irresponsible real estate
developer again. Come to think of it, it would also be a good idea to
re-evaluate any Piermont municipal bond purchase decisions before the next unfortunate
flood.
Very truly yours,
John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Resident of the Town of Orangetown, New York
