Unhand Piermont!: Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker's US$367,938 Scam.

At this point in time, all of Piermont, Orangetown, and Rockland County know that Auditors from the New York State Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) have been all over Mayor Bruce Tucker’s books and records.

On-scene reports indicated that OSC spent at least a month at Piermont Village Hall, poring over the finances of the 2,500-resident village and its lame-duck Mayor. This NYS Comptroller “Risk Assessment” action was triggered by, inter alia: (1) Mayor Bruce Tucker’s strident willful recidivist refusal to timely file financials for inclusion in the OSC Fiscal Stress Monitoring System for each prior year of his term since 2018, and (2) Mayor Bruce Tucker’s utter mismanagement of Piermont monies, leading to an approximate Nine Million Dollar (US$9,000,000) retrograde loss in Piermont's Net Position over Tucker’s 7+ years in mayoral office.

Your money.

1.
It therefore may seem counterintuitive to hear Bruce Tucker laud 0% tax increases for some Piermont homes this year. Yet Tucker is not running for re-election as Mayor. Tucker is quitting, and Tucker’s Board of Trustees mortal enemy Nate Mitchell is running for Piermont Mayor unopposed. Therefore, Mayor Tucker is simply kicking the can down the road - seeking to set-up his sworn adversary Nate Mitchell for a massive Piermont tax increase in 2026. This way, Bruce Tucker can assure that his disastrous reign as The Garmento Mayor of Piermont will remain the gift that keeps on giving - to Nate Mitchell, and to all other Piermont residents for whom Tucker has nothing other than bitter contempt.

2.
It therefore may also seem counterintuitive to read that at least one of the Auditors from the New York State Comptroller’s Office called-out the bizarre fuzzy-set accounting of Bruce Tucker and the Village of Piermont, for maintaining an “Unassigned Fund Balance” that was too big:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-garmento-mayor-bruce-tucker.html

You will recall that this is the same US$3,210,196 “Unassigned Fund Balance” which Bruce Tucker touted last year to, inter alia, justify the upkeep of the Village of Piermont’s tenuous bond rating:

https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/11/bruce-tucker-of-whole-cloth.html

That's the arcane world of municipal finance for you. A "public official" like Bruce Tucker who cannot even prevent the Piermont Pier from crumbling into the Hudson River, then begging residents for donations therefor - a "public official" like Bruce Tucker who deploys an associated Piermont non-profit to beg taxpaying residents for a lousy US$10,000 for Christmas lights a few months ago – a "public official" now slammed by the New York State Comptroller for, in essence, keeping too much cash on hand.

Yet look more carefully and calculate. The numerical results will overwhelm.

The New York State Comptroller Auditor advised Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker to limit his Unassigned Fund Balance to “20% of the total budget”. [Emphasis supplied].

But Tucker, on-record on April 15, 2025, arrogantly and deliberately disregarded that carefully-considered recommendation of the NYS Comptroller Auditor. Mayor Bruce Tucker, the man who failed at seemingly every business venture in which he ever engaged since college, essentially replied: “No, Mister Comptroller, I’m taking 25% of the total budget instead - and if a balance exceeds 25%, then I can use it for capital project emergency repairs. Because I, Garmento Mayor Bruce Tucker and the Pride of Elizabeth, New Jersey, say so”:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-garmento-mayor-bruce-tucker.html

Mayor Tucker then had a Village of Piermont Resolution prepared to that effect, and set it up for a May 13, 2025 Board of Trustees vote, essentially sticking it in the face of the New York State Comptroller's Office. It read like this:

So this all raises the key question. What is the Village of Piermont “total budget”, actually?

Well, a review of a document posted to the Village of Piermont Internet website titled “2026 Adopted Budget - Village of Piermont 04-15-2025” does not actually use the phrase “total budget” anywhere in its 13 pages:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/2026-adopted-budget-village-of-piermont.html
https://www.piermont-ny.gov/government/clerks_office/fiscal_budget.php#outer-44sub-333

However, on the first and last page of that 13-page budget document, we find parallel bold-face all-CAPS references to both “TOTAL REVENUES INCLUDING TAXES” and “TOTAL GENERAL FUND”, each in the identical dollar-amount of US$7,358,767:

https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/2026-adopted-budget-village-of-piermont.html

Therefore, if only for the sake of this mathematical exercise to follow, let’s use that US$7,358,767 dollar-figure, for now anyway, as the equivalent of OSC’s intended “total budget” number. (That said, if someone furnishes me a credible larger number, then I will re-calculate and re-post to this Blog – but I know that a “total budget” by definition would have to be either equal to or else larger than either Piermont “total revenues” or “total general fund” for the year).

20% of US$7,358,767, is US$1,471,753 (and forty cents). In the context of this exercise, then, the NYS Comptroller Auditor advised Bruce Tucker that the Piermont “Unassigned Fund Balance” should be limited to “20% of the total budget” – or, should be limited to the dollar-figure of US$1,471,753. (Keep the change).

But, whoa. First keep in mind that this US$1,471,753 Comptroller-recommended cap is less than half of the US$3,210,196 “Unassigned Fund Balance” which Mayor Bruce Tucker actually claimed and took last year in 2024 - in order to try to hypnotize the Wall Street bond market into acquiescence towards continuation of Piermont’s artificially-enhanced bond rating. Obviously, the NYS Comptroller Auditor is now wise to Bruce Tucker’s Wall Street hustle in this regard, as a result of the Comptroller's “Risk Assessment” of Piermont’s finances commencing in 2024.

Now, Wall Street, too, will become wise to Tucker’s charade - and I actually know the guy that will tell Wall Street.

Therefore, we start with the fundamental proposition that Bruce Tucker is desperate to try to artificially prop-up Piermont’s finances, to make Piermont look richer than it is – all while his pathetic Pier tip is crumbling into the Hudson River and while his coffers apparently can't afford Christmas lights for the village. So, what does Bruce Tucker do? He deliberately defies the NYS Comptroller Auditor’s recommendation, and seeks to decree a “25% of the total budget” cap on the Unassigned Fund Balance, instead of a “20% of the total budget” cap.

Now, a 5% increment may not sound like much of a differential to you in the abstract. Yet as those in government finance or wealth management should already be well aware, it really depends upon what you are multiplying that 5% against, doesn't it?

What is Bruce Tucker's higher desired dollar-figure? Bruce Tucker’s ipse dixit inflated 25% of a US$7,358,767 Piermont “total budget”, would result in a much higher "Unassigned Fund Balance" of US$1,839,691 (and seventy-five cents):

https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-garmento-mayor-bruce-tucker.html

Now, subtract the Comptroller’s more reasoned “20% of total budget” dollar-figure - that is, US$1,471,753 - from Tucker’s artificially-inflated US$1,839,691…

That is, US$1,839,691 minus US$1,471,753…

You arrive at US$367,938.

That’s right. By deliberately and blatantly contravening the clear recommendation of the NYS Comptroller Auditor, and by therefore using a self-servingly distended 25% cap in lieu of a 20% cap, Piermont Garmento Mayor Bruce Tucker is in effect seeking to claim and keep an incremental US$367,938 cash-on-hand equivalent as an additional “Unassigned Fund Balance”.

That’s not mayoral discretion. That’s a freaking scam.

Sure, Bruce Tucker could be remitting this same US$367,938 dollar-amount back to the already-overtaxed Piermont residents, where it belongs. But he’s not.

Sure, Bruce Tucker could be following the NYS Comptroller Auditor’s advice. But he’s not.

Bruce Tucker wants to pretend to Wall Street that Piermont is economically-sound. But it’s not.

For that matter, beyond Bruce Tucker’s US$367,938 scam perpetrated upon Piermont residents, upon the NYS Comptroller, and upon the Wall Street bond market - are there even further additional reasons why Bruce Tucker is barefacedly scraping for an incremental US$367,938 cash-on-hand equivalent?

Yes. Yes there are.

I.
Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker and the Village of Piermont are about to get tied-up in a series of Article 78 litigations and other civil lawsuits - over his contemptible overdevelopment initiatives, falsified environmental certifications, and the inept mishandling of Piermont’s first-ever Comprehensive Plan. Those litigations will cost money. Tucker also may need to pay off further or outstanding costs and fees relating to the senseless prior litigation that he already fomented last year regarding the abhorrent planned development for 447-77 Piermont Avenue - which Tucker fostered and facilitated as his mayoral pet project.

II.
Based upon admissions made by Bruce Tucker and by Piermont’s publicist-“planner” Max Stach, as of April 15, 2025, Piermont grant monies were in danger of being required to be refunded back to the original grantor or grantors – in particular, if Piermont needed to indicate a “Pos Dec” or “Positive Declaration” in connection with the environmental "assessment" of its own Comprehensive Plan:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/dumping-max-stach-its-gas.html

A civil litigation, judicial mandate, law enforcement agency action, or other agency action could, inter alia, compel a "Pos Dec" regardless of whatever else Tucker and his Village Hall sycophants otherwise falsify.

For example, the rushed Village of Piermont April 29, 2025 “adoption” of the flawed, typo-ridden Comprehensive Plan could be later adjudicated to be fatally-defective and therefore void ab initio. Based upon what Max ("Flounder") Stach said at Piermont Village Hall on April 15, 2025, and based upon what Garmento Mayor Bruce Tucker indicated in writing on the Village website to his Piermont constituents on March 12, 2025, that might work to compel a Piermont refund of US$150,000 (or more) in previously-received grant money:

https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/how-to-find-mayor-bruce-tuckers-march.html

Of course, the question would then be, why was Bruce Tucker's feckless village government even holding this grant money in the first place?

Unhand Piermont!

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker's US$367,938 Scam.

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