Saturday, November 30, 2024

Rockland County To Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker: "You Haven't The Faintest Idea What You Are Doing, Do You?"


The Next Mayoral Conference Should Be A Fun One.

To:
barbara@nycom.org
brian@nycom.org
eileen@nycom.org
jennifer@nycom.org
jmancini@nycom.org
nicole@nycom.org
norma@nycom.org
rebecca@nycom.org
ursula@nycom.org
wade@nycom.org
 
cc:
Amyvillageevl@gmail.com
cityhelp@mountvernonny.gov
dean@schnellerlaw.com
fmurray@murrayandmccann.com
gmccarthy@schenectadyny.gov
hflou3@rochester.rr.com
info@hamilton-ny.gov
John.Goodwin@CanandaiguaNewYork.gov
kimt@hamilton-ny.gov
legislatormilne@gmail.com
maryklahn699@gmail.com
mayor@cityofplattsburgh-ny.gov
mayor@clydeny.com
Mayor@freeportny.gov
mayor@hamilton-ny.gov
mayor@syr.gov
mayorbuckley@cityofhornell.com
mayoreric@cityhall.nyc.gov
mayorevl@gmail.com
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mayorsoffice@whiteplainsny.gov
mblackman@brockportny.org
rkennedy@freeportny.gov
SPHInaugural@gmail.com
the97legend@gmail.com
villageclerk@clydeny.com
vwcmayor@westelcom.com
waiello@cityofolean.org
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Werunmtvernon@gmail.com
xmantis13@gmail.com
 
cc:
nyscma-l@ls.suny.edu
[To the entire NYSCMA list]

Friday, November 29, 2024: Regarding NYCOM And Piermont, New York Mayor Bruce Tucker – Bruce Tucker And His Company "Rainbow Linens, Inc." Make The Wall Street Journal For Falsifying Sheet Thread-Counts.
 
Dear Mayors and Other New York State Government Officials:

Please see the below:

https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/piermont-mayor-bruce-tucker-and-rainbow.html
“Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker And Rainbow Linens Make The Wall Street Journal For Falsifying Sheet Thread-Counts”.
 
If you pull on the thread for long enough, the whole thing unravels.
 
Piermont, New York Mayor Bruce Tucker is currently in the middle of a New York State Comptroller “Risk Assessment” scrutinizing his and the Village’s mishandling of resident taxpayer dollars and finances. The Comptroller’s “Risk Assessment” is the traditional precursor to a plenary Comptroller audit. That’s now well-known throughout the 2,500-person village:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/newsflash-office-of-new-york-state.html
 
What is astounding, though, is how little the Piermont, New York electorate actually knows, to this day, about Bruce Tucker and his sordid past history as a sheet and towel salesman with Elizabeth, New Jersey-based “Rainbow Linens, Inc.”
 
Well, all that is about to change. Effective now.
 
Below you can read the Year 2006 Wall Street Journal article, also picked-up in the Atlanta Constitution, explaining how, in his former garmento life in the “sheeting business”, now-Mayor Bruce Tucker actually falsified the thread-counts of his “Rainbow Linens” sheets wholesaled to retailers.
 
Bruce Tucker then got busted by the Wall Street Journal, by the Atlanta Constitution, and by Hearst’s “Good Housekeeping Research Institute” for it… Actually busted by “Good Housekeeping”!… That would be like getting thrown-out of a backstage hang with Ambrosia.
 
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Up to now, Piermont residents have wondered how they could have elected and re-elected a Mayor who, as his unsavory and unscrupulous “pet project”, propagated a fake zoning law, to enable a corrupted real estate development at 447-477 Piermont Avenue - while he lied about its environmental impacts, and while he recklessly put the Village of Piermont into a deep financial black hole by dint of his rank fiscal mismanagement otherwise.
 
Yet the answer was hiding in plain sight all the time. It’s right there in the Wall Street Journal. He is the same Bruce Tucker now, as he was then. He lied to his retailer customers and the purchasing public then. And he lies to his Piermont constituents now. Meet the Recidivist Garmento out of Elizabeth, New Jersey – Piermont’s very own hometown Mayor, none other than one Bruce Edward Tucker.
 
Now the Piermont taxpaying residents must pull on that thread, and demand Bruce Tucker’s resignation and permanent removal from office.
 
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/piermont-mayor-bruce-tucker-and-rainbow.html
“Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker And Rainbow Linens Make The Wall Street Journal For Falsifying Sheet Thread-Counts”.

See also:
 
Brought to you by:
Unhand Piermont!
Garmentomayor.com
RainbowLinens.com
- - - - -
 
The text of the Wall Street Journal article from Year 2006, follows below:
 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116052613652288766
Good Housekeeping Touts Its Test Lab To Seek New Readers’ Seal of Approval.
By Sarah Ellison
Oct. 11, 2006 12:01 am ET
 
The research arm of Good Housekeeping magazine has been testing products for more than a century and granting advertisers who pass muster its famous seal of approval for almost as long. In its early days, the magazine’s “experiment station” was designed to help new brides become better housekeepers.
 
The Hearst Corp. magazine has evolved since then, but it is its testing lab -- now called the Good Housekeeping Research Institute -- that has undergone the biggest facelift of late as the magazine pushes to maintain its position among traditional women’s titles while fending off arriviste like Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple and O, The Oprah Magazine.
 
[Testing a dress in the 1940s].
 
Good Housekeeping, with a circulation of 4.6 million, still has more than double the audience of the newer entries but has been losing readers over the years. Circulation is down nearly 25% since the late 1960s, and 11% since 1995.
 
The institute and its gleaming 20,000-square-foot headquarters on the 29th floor of Hearst’s new midtown Manhattan building will be part of a push to tout Good Housekeeping’s product testing, serving as the backdrop for the magazine’s regular segments on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today.” It will be the most visible sign of the magazine’s efforts in recent years to emphasize its research -- including expanding its work beyond issuing the seal of approval to qualified advertisers to rating products from linens to washing machines.
 
“I think we can use it more,” says Rosemary Ellis, who was named the magazine’s editor-in-chief in May, replacing longtime editor Ellen Levine, who became editorial director for all Hearst magazines.
 
The Good Housekeeping Seal famously promises that if a product proves defective within two years of purchase, Good Housekeeping will offer a refund to anyone who requests it. To advertise in the magazine, a product needs to qualify for the seal. Likewise, to get the seal, a product has to advertise in the magazine, which some say hurts the seal’s credibility as an objective measure of quality. Consumer Reports, for instance, doesn’t accept advertising, and has an extensive testing lab. It doesn’t offer a refund, though, to unhappy consumers.
Good Housekeeping defends the seal. “It’s a money-back guarantee,” says Publisher Patricia Haegele. “We have to be able to back it up, and the process is even more deliberate because of that when it comes to putting a seal on the product.”
 
[The seal of approval today].
 
But the seal had lost its relevance with younger consumers. “The seal still gives consumers confidence, but for people between the ages of 18 and 34 who didn’t grow up with grandma and grandpa’s Good Housekeeping seal, they’re not really sure what it means,” says Burt Flickinger, a marketing and retail consultant and managing director of Strategic Marketing Group in New York.
 
As much as the Good Housekeeping Seal became a household name throughout the last century, the testing lab behind it remained relatively unknown. That is, until Ms. Levine gave the researchers who staff the institute a broader mandate: Instead of just testing products and making sure they were safe to be advertised, she urged staffers to do their own research, to sniff out faulty products or consumer frauds that she could expose in the magazine, regardless of whether the products were advertised in Good Housekeeping. “We urged them to become reporters,” says Ms. Levine.
 
[The institute tests a variety of products, including stuffed animals].
 
Now, says Ms. Ellis, “They are all like a dog with a bone.” One of the most zealous is Kathleen Huddy, director of the institute’s textiles laboratory. Every day, Ms. Huddy tortures fabrics, rubbing rough metal over them to encourage fraying, pulling on them to see if they’ll tear and setting them on fire.
 
In 2002, she did her first towel investigation and found that many towel manufacturers added a softener to the finished product which makes the unwashed towel feel softer in the store. It also helps the towel hold its shape for a few washes. However, after being washed repeatedly (Ms. Huddy’s test includes 25 washes) the towel lost its softness and shrunk.
 
In its October issue that year the magazine ran an article telling readers, “Towels: Don’t fall for the fluff.” In it, the “biggest loser” was Martha Stewart’s Everyday Egyptian towel because it shrunk almost six inches after repeated washes. A spokeswoman for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. said the company did its own tests and found Good Housekeeping overstated the amount of shrinkage.
 
Ms. Huddy followed up on her research earlier this summer and concluded that many manufacturers have stopped using the softener and have increased the size of their towels by two inches. She picked Kohl’s Sonoma brand as her favorite for “fade resistance” and avoiding shrinkage.
 
After the initial towel tests, Ms. Huddy turned her attention to sheets. She had noticed sheet sets on sale for $169.99 that claimed an 800-thread count. But by looking at the sheet fibers under a microscope and counting the number of threads per square inch, she discovered that some manufacturers, such as Synergy and Rainbow Linens Inc., were counting the individual plies that make up each of the threads in the thread-counts, thereby doubling the actual number. A follow-up earlier this year found similar problems with other brands, including Synergy.
 
Bruce Tucker, Rainbow’s owner, says his company now only use single-ply threads, but it had nothing to do with the institute’s findings. Synergy did not return calls seeking comment.
[Bold-face emphasis added].
 
In Hearst’s new corporate headquarters, which officially opened earlier this week, the institute gets a whole floor. It houses 15 employees as well as multiple test kitchens and labs, a climatology chamber to expose products to extreme temperatures, a soundproof room and updated equipment to test things ranging from the durability of stuffed animals to the effect of moisturizers on human skin.
 
The first thing visitors to the newly revamped institute see when they walk through the glass doors is a white wall with a red line slashed through the middle of it. Above the horizontal line are “good” products, those that have earned the Good Housekeeping Seal. Below is a kind of hall of shame of products such as a princess dress that easily caught on fire or a “fake fitness belt,” a vibrating belt that was designed to help a user lose weight but burned some people instead.
 
Write to Sarah Ellison at sarah.ellison@wsj.com




































Bruce Tucker, NY CON.

 
Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq.
John J. Tormey III, PLLC
1636 Third Avenue, PMB 188
New York, NY  10128  USA
(212) 410-4142 (phone)
(212) 410-2380 (fax)
jtormey@optonline.net
https://www.tormey.org
 
Saturday, November 30, 2024
 
VIA FAX: 1-845-638-5298, and U.S. MAIL
District Attorney Tom Walsh
Rockland County District Attorney’s Office
1 South Main St, Suite 500
New City, New York 10956-3549 USA
 
VIA U.S. MAIL and E-MAIL:
info@rocklandda.org
Criminal Investigations Unit
Rockland County District Attorney’s Office
1 South Main St, Suite 500
New City, New York 10956-3549 USA
 
Re: NEW Financial Information Regarding Piermont, New York And Mayor Bruce Tucker
 
Dear District Attorney Walsh, and Colleagues:
 
Further to my April 17, 2024 and July 21, 2024 letters to your office, and mindful that the Village of Piermont is currently under an OSC “Risk Assessment” inquiry, investigation, or audit as the case may be - there has been a significant new development in Piermont with potentially grave economic and other impact to the Village.
 
My belief is that your office should be made aware of this news now, if not aware already. I have also informed OSC about it.
 
1. The Piermont Pier Tip Is Crumbling. It was just reported-out to all of us on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2024, that the end of the famed and cherished Piermont Pier is in imminent danger of collapse into the Hudson River. Piermont Village government has shut it down and closed it off:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/attention-piermont-residents-your-mayor.html

https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/piermont-piers-final-section-closed.html
 
2. Mayor Bruce Tucker Said That He Had Approximately US$3,000,000 Banked. I trust that you will recall this next part from prior correspondence. Mayor Bruce Tucker attested in an April 16, 2024 Board of Trustees meeting and in a subsequent RCBJ interview published on July 30, 2024, that Tucker and Piermont Village government were flush with a US$3,210,196 “unassigned Fund Balance”. Mayor Tucker further indicated in that meeting that he would only be using US$216,000 of that US$3,210,196 “unassigned Fund Balance” to offset the pain of a 6.9% tax increase inflicted on Piermont resident taxpayers because, in Tucker’s words at the time:
 
“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, Page 4 of 8, at:
https://cms9files1.revize.com/piermont/document_center/Agendas%20&%20Minutes/2024/Minutes/BOT%20Meeting%20Minutes%20April%2016%202024.pdf

Therefore, even assuming arguendo that Mayor Tucker already parted with US$216,000 in tax relief, it would stand to reason that he would have approximately US$3 million remaining, extant, and banked. Yet based upon the below, it now appears that he either never had it to begin with, or if he did ever have it, he since squandered it.
 
3. Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker Is Now Begging People For Money. Unbelievably, Mayor Tucker and Piermont Village Hall are now, in essence, pleading poverty in their public statements about the imminent collapse of, and needed repair or replacement of, the Piermont Pier tip. We are now told that the Village Board is “investigating the possibility of potential [g]rants[emphasis added] that may be available to replace” the crumbling Pier section:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/attention-piermont-residents-your-mayor.html
 
Moreover, Mayor Tucker himself was quoted in yesterday’s Journal News article as pathetically begging for money to replace the crumbling Pier tip:
 
“The Village Board was working on obtaining cost quotes to replace the concrete portion, which includes seeking grants… ‘We are going to need some major money here”, Tucker said. “If anyone has any money, we’d love to talk to them’”. [Emphasis added].
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/piermont-piers-final-section-closed.html
 
4. It Now Appears That Tucker’s Claim Of A US$3,000,000 Fund Balance, Was A Lie. Mayor Bruce Tucker is an individual who took the Village of Piermont from a US$800,000 Net Position surplus, way deep into a negative (-US$7,600,000) Net Position abyss, in his seven short incompetent years as Piermont’s Mayor. It now appears that this former garment industry hack’s April 16, 2024 and July 30, 2024 public attestations about having US$3,000,000 banked for the benefit of the Piermont residents who trusted him, was simply of whole cloth. Same as it ever was. Just like he lied about his sheeting company’s thread-counts then, he is lying about Piermont’s finances now:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/piermont-mayor-bruce-tucker-and-rainbow.html

Why would Mayor Bruce Tucker “need major money” and beg rich individuals for it in the Journal News, if he had US$3,000,000 safely banked in an “unassigned Fund Balance”?
 
5. Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker Is A Fiscal Failure. The fact of the matter is, Bruce Tucker’s failures as Piermont's Mayor caused Piermont’s current financial distress. Tucker and the Village obviously did not adequately plan for eventualities. In a rare moment of ingenuousness from Tucker in a different interview:
 
“‘[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://rcbizjournal.com/2024/07/30/piermont-mayor-bruce-tucker-talks-about-controversy-engulfing-his-village/

https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/08/piermont-do-you-speak-succubus.html
 
Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker is not only an economic disaster.
 
He cannot even keep his own story straight, press interview-to-press interview.
 
I hope that you and your colleagues will see fit to incorporate the new information contained in this letter, and the above-quoted statements out of Mayor Bruce Tucker’s own mouth, into a further review and analysis of the misconduct of the Village of Piermont government and Mayor Bruce Tucker.
 
The residents of the Village of Piermont are counting on you.
 
Thank you for your continued attention to this matter.
 
Very truly yours,

John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Resident of the Town of Orangetown, New York

Bruce Tucker, Of Whole Cloth.


Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq.
John J. Tormey III, PLLC
1636 Third Avenue, PMB 188
New York, NY  10128  USA
(212) 410-4142 (phone)
(212) 410-2380 (fax)
jtormey@optonline.net
https://www.tormey.org
 
Saturday, November 30, 2024
 
VIA U.S. MAIL and E-MAIL:
lnewhall@osc.ny.gov
muni-newburgh@osc.ny.gov
LGSA-Audits@osc.ny.gov
Laura A. Newhall – Auditor 3
Office of the State Comptroller (OSC)
33 Airport Center Drive, Suite 102
New Windsor, New York 12553 USA
 
Re: NEW Financial Information Regarding Piermont, New York And Mayor Bruce Tucker
 
Dear Ms. Newhall, and OSC Colleagues:
 
Further to my July 21, 2024 and August 16, 2024 letters to your New York State Comptroller’s office and our respective communications which followed, and mindful that the Village of Piermont and Mayor Bruce Tucker are currently under an OSC “Risk Assessment” inquiry, investigation, or audit as the case may be - there has been a significant new development in Piermont with potentially grave economic impact to the Village.
 
My belief is that your OSC auditor colleagues should be made aware of this news now, if they are not aware of it already.
 
1. The Piermont Pier Tip Is Crumbling. It was just reported-out to all of us on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2024, that the end of the famed and cherished Piermont Pier is in imminent danger of collapse into the Hudson River. Piermont Village government has shut it down and closed it off:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/attention-piermont-residents-your-mayor.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/piermont-piers-final-section-closed.html
 
2. Mayor Bruce Tucker Said That He Had Approximately US$3,000,000 Banked. I trust you will recall this next part from our prior correspondence. Mayor Bruce Tucker attested in an April 16, 2024 Board of Trustees meeting, and in a subsequent RCBJ interview, that Tucker and Piermont Village government were flush with a US$3,210,196 “unassigned Fund Balance”. Mayor Tucker further indicated that he would only be using US$216,000 of that US$3,210,196 “unassigned Fund Balance” to offset the 6.9% tax increase pain inflicted on Piermont resident taxpayers because, in his words at the time:
 
“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, Page 4 of 8, at:
https://cms9files1.revize.com/piermont/document_center/Agendas%20&%20Minutes/2024/Minutes/BOT%20Meeting%20Minutes%20April%2016%202024.pdf

https://rcbizjournal.com/2024/07/30/piermont-mayor-bruce-tucker-talks-about-controversy-engulfing-his-village/
 
Therefore, even assuming arguendo that Mayor Tucker already parted with US$216,000 in tax relief, it would stand to reason that he would have approximately US$3 million remaining, extant, and banked. Yet based upon the below, it now appears that he either never had it to begin with, or if he did ever have it, he since squandered it.
 
3. Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker Is Now Begging People For Money. Unbelievably, Mayor Tucker and Piermont Village Hall are now, in essence, pleading poverty in their public statements about the imminent collapse of, and needed repair or replacement of, the Piermont Pier tip. We are now told that the Village Board is “investigating the possibility of potential [g]rants[emphasis added] that may be available to replace” the crumbling Pier section:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/attention-piermont-residents-your-mayor.html
 
Moreover, Mayor Tucker himself was quoted in yesterday’s Journal News article as pathetically begging for money to replace the crumbling Pier tip:
 
“The Village Board was working on obtaining cost quotes to replace the concrete portion, which includes seeking grants… ‘We are going to need some major money here”, Tucker said. “If anyone has any money, we’d love to talk to them’”. [Emphasis added].
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/piermont-piers-final-section-closed.html
 
4. It Now Appears That Tucker’s Claim Of A US$3,000,000 Fund Balance, Was A Lie. Mayor Bruce Tucker is an individual who took the Village of Piermont from a US$800,000 Net Position surplus, way deep into a negative (-US$7,600,000) Net Position abyss, in his seven short incompetent years as Piermont’s Mayor. It now appears that this former garment industry hack’s April 16, 2024 public attestation about having US$3,000,000 banked for the benefit of the Piermont residents who trusted him, was simply of whole cloth:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/piermont-mayor-bruce-tucker-and-rainbow.html
 
Why would Mayor Bruce Tucker “need major money” and barefacedly beg rich individuals for it in the Journal News, if he had US$3,000,000 safely banked in an “unassigned Fund Balance”?
 
5. Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker Is A Fiscal Failure. The fact of the matter is, Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker’s failures as Mayor caused Piermont’s current financial distress. Tucker and the Village obviously did not adequately plan for eventualities. In a rare moment of candor from Tucker in a different interview:
 
“‘[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://rcbizjournal.com/2024/07/30/piermont-mayor-bruce-tucker-talks-about-controversy-engulfing-his-village/

https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/08/piermont-do-you-speak-succubus.html
 
Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker is not only an economic disaster.
 
He cannot even keep his own story straight, press interview to press interview.
 
I trust that you and your colleagues will be able to incorporate the new information contained in this letter, and the above-quoted statements out of Mayor Bruce Tucker’s own mouth, into an expansion of the scope of the “Risk Assessment” of the Village of Piermont government and Mayor Bruce Tucker.
 
The residents of the Village of Piermont are counting on you.
 
Thank you for your continued attention to this matter.
 
Very truly yours,

John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Resident of the Town of Orangetown, New York
 
cc:
VIA FAX: 1-518-473-8940, (1-212-681-4468), U.S. MAIL and E-MAIL:
contactus@osc.ny.gov
sgaaudits@osc.ny.gov
New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli
Office of the New York State Comptroller - Albany Office
110 State Street
Albany, New York 12236 USA         
 
VIA U.S. MAIL and E-MAIL:
jfreeman@osc.ny.gov
press@osc.ny.gov
Jennifer L. Freeman, Communications Director
New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli
Office of the New York State Comptroller - New York City Office
59 Maiden Lane
New York, New York 10038 USA
 
VIA U.S. MAIL and E-MAIL:
eburgess@strategen.com
Edward Burgess – Director
Strategen
10265 Rockingham Drive, Suite #100-4061
Sacramento, California 95827 USA
 
VIA FAX: 1-518-408-3931, U.S. MAIL, and E-MAIL:
InspectorGeneral@osc.ny.gov
Office of the New York State Comptroller – Inspector General
New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli
59 Maiden Lane
New York, New York 10038 USA
 
VIA FAX: 1-518-408-3931, U.S. MAIL, and E-MAIL:
investigations@osc.ny.gov
Office of the New York State Comptroller – Investigations Division
New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli
59 Maiden Lane
New York, New York 10038 USA

"Piermont Pier’s Final Section Closed Amid Risk Of Collapse".

https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/2024/11/29/piermont-ny-pier-on-hudson-river-closed-amid-risk-of-collapse/76656006007/
 
Rockland
 
Piermont Pier’s Final Section Closed Amid Risk Of Collapse.
Nancy Cutler
Rockland/Westchester Journal News
 
“In the interest of public safety, we regret that the entire cement portion of the Pier will be blocked to pedestrians until further notice,” according to a village notice.
 
“We got that thing and we were like, “Oh my God!’ Let’s just stop it right at the end of the blacktop and not let anyone get close,” Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker said.
 
PIERMONT ‒ Anyone looking to take a Thanksgiving Day stroll to the end of the Piermont Pier found it shuttered, with a “Do Not Enter” sign blocking the concrete portion of the path.
 
The damaged portion was built at the end of the historic pier in the 1950s. The Hudson’s brackish water led to damage that could destabilize it, according to a report by an engineering firm hired by the village.
 
“In the interest of public safety, we regret that the entire cement portion of the Pier will be blocked to pedestrians until further notice,” according to a village notice.
 
BlueShore Engineering reported on Nov. 26 that deterioration had significantly advanced in the cement portion since the previous inspection. “There are numerous areas at imminent risk of failure,” the firm’s correspondence states.
 
“The pier is still open for recreation, it’s just the very end,” Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker said Friday.
 
The end of the Piermont Pier, a concrete portion added in the 1950s, was shut Nov. 27, 2024, after an engineering report warned it was unsafe.
 
[‘Reinforcing is completely gone’]
 
The concrete portion of the pier was last checked by BlueShore Engineering seven years ago. A new evaluation, in five to eight years, was recommended then.
 
Piermont Village Volunteer Fire Department’s dive team recently took measurements of the pilings and sent it to BlueShore Engineering.
 
According to the report, the cross-flow current of the estuary could cause ice floes or logs or similar debris to float down- or up-river in the current and contact a failed pile. That could lead to overload of adjacent piles and cause a progressive collapse of the concrete, “because the reinforcing is completely gone.”
 
Tucker said the village received the report late Tuesday night. “The first thing Wednesday morning DPW put the barrier out,” he said.
 
BlueShore reported to the village than an in-place repair would be possible but costly.
 
The firm’s takeaway: It would less expensive to perform a complete demolition and replace the section.
 
[Impact of blocked access to pier]

The pier is mostly used for recreation, from fishing to walking, running and cycling.
 
The Sloop Clearwater, run by the environmental organization of a similar name, docks several times a year as it provides lessons. A cruise ship company in 2021 asked the village for permission to dock there for its Hudson tours, but the village’s consultant said then that the ship was too big for the pier to accommodate.
 
Tucker said that lots of activities can still take place, just not at the short concrete path and square at the very end.
 
Tucker said the conditions, documented by the Piermont firefighters, set off alarms, Tucker said. “We got that thing and we were like, “Oh my God!’ Let’s just stop it right at the end of the blacktop and not let anyone get close.”
 
A drone view of the Piermont Pier May 4, 2023. The nearly mile-long pier was built in the 1800s for the Erie Railroad. During World War II, soldiers from Camp Shanks boarded boats at the end of the pier on their way to Europe. Pilings that formed a berth for large ships can still be seen at left.
 
Tucker said that the concrete portion, added in the 1950s, is on pilings. The rest of the pier, which is blacktop, was build on bedrock a century earlier.
 
“Similar wear and tear was seen on the old Tappan Zee Bridge,” which was opened in 1955 and replaced in 2017, Tucker said about the concrete portion of the pier. “They were built at the same time.”
 
[Can it be fixed? At what cost?]
 
No price estimate has been made available for either a repair or replacement.
 
Tucker said he believes it could be in the millions.
 
Federal representatives, including U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, and U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-Pearl River, have been looped-in, Tucker said. The Village Board was working on obtaining cost quotes to replace the concrete portion, which includes seeking grants.
 
“We are going to need some major money here”, Tucker said. “If anyone has any money, we’d love to talk to them”.
 
[Pier’s history]
 
Built by the Erie Railroad starting in 1838, with tracks extending out to the end of the mile-long pier, the Piermont Pier has played a key role in local and U.S. history.
 
The Erie Railroad, at the time in opened in 1851, was the longest railroad in the world. People would come up on ferries to catch the train to Lake Erie.
 
The railroad also served the village’s paper mill, which opened in 1902.
 
During World War II, the pier was the embarkation point for thousands of soldiers leaving for Europe from nearby Camp Shanks.
 
The railroad tracks were later removed.
 
The paper mill closed in 1982, and the pier was converted to recreational use sometime afterward.
 
https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/2024/11/29/piermont-ny-pier-on-hudson-river-closed-amid-risk-of-collapse/76656006007/