I did that as a wholly-unsolicited “Thank You” to, and out of gratitude for,
the courage of the “Piermont Community Page Uncensored” Facebook page and its Admin
“Joe Palk”, demonstrated since last April 2024. The “Piermont Community Page Uncensored” page is published
for the benefit of Piermont residents consonant with continued First Amendment
values. I am equally appreciative of all other Facebook pages and platforms
which have carried my writings about Piermont, New York.
Yesterday I received a
massive document-production FOIL response from the Office of the New York State
Comptroller (OSC). It is comprised of almost 600 “.pdf”, spreadsheet, e-mail,
and other documents, some of which are rather voluminous themselves. It took
many hours just to download the documents from the OSC platform, but I have
secured all of them now. In the coming days, I intend to post relevant findings
therefrom to the “Unhand Piermont!” Blog, and then link to that material
through Facebook and other social media and Internet platforms as I normally
do.
Here is the most significant
initial finding, though. On the 4th page of the Comptroller’s transmittal
letter to me of yesterday morning (nominally dated July 30, 2025), OSC
indicated that they may have thusfar withheld certain other FOIL’d Records from
production to me:
“… under POL §87(2)(e). POL §87(2)(e) permits the denial of access to records or portions thereof that are compiled for law enforcement purposes and which, if disclosed would (i) interfere with law enforcement investigations or judicial proceedings. Case law holds that if disclosure of records compiled for law enforcement purposes, including audits, would enable individuals to frustrate pending or prospective investigations, then such records may be withheld (see, e.g., Madeiros v. New York State Educ. Dep’t, 30 N.Y.3d 67 (2017). [Emphasis added].https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5c073776342cca1de2310b35
Those following my “Unhand
Piermont!” posts since April 2024, each for whom I am grateful, know that I
often indulge humor to make light of difficult situations and put bloated
corrupt public servants and their miscreant enablers, in their proper place.
Yet the above-quoted portion of the State Comptroller’s letter leaves no room
for joking around. The Comptroller has now confirmed that the audit of Piermont
and its village government’s practices is in fact a “law enforcement
investigation[]” conducted “for law enforcement purposes”.
Yet there is also a second aspect to the above quotation from the Comptroller’s transmittal letter, which is a bit more subtle. The Comptroller’s office often speaks of collaboration with municipalities in a non-adversarial way, and may not actually consider itself a “law enforcement agency” per se. Indeed, in the below-linked article, for example, the Comptroller’s office speaks of “partnering” with law enforcement agencies - thereby suggesting that the Comptroller does not really see ITSELF as a law enforcement agency:
https://www.osc.ny.gov/investigations
Therefore, yesterday’s OSC transmittal letter suggests to me that any POL§87(2)(e) withholding of FOIL’d documents by OSC, may have been done to protect the continued work of one or more other agencies that would in fact be properly characterized as “law enforcement agencies”. Waiting in the wings.
As I have previously published as de facto warnings to Mayor Bruce Tucker and to those other individuals that acted in concert with him on the 447-477 Piermont Avenue project and other Tucker malfeasance, “Other guests may be coming”.
And, as I have previously warned the sycophantic enablers of Bruce Tucker - if you have any information on the corruption that has characterized Piermont Village government since 2018, it would definitely be in your own personal best interests to come forward with it now and bring it to the New York State Comptroller now before further law enforcement action might be taken – provided that the same information is not already contained in the massive FOIL production that I received today, that is.
After all, I already saw a lot of familiar names in those “.pdf”s.
John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Founder, “Unhand Piermont!”
Town of Orangetown, New York
Yet there is also a second aspect to the above quotation from the Comptroller’s transmittal letter, which is a bit more subtle. The Comptroller’s office often speaks of collaboration with municipalities in a non-adversarial way, and may not actually consider itself a “law enforcement agency” per se. Indeed, in the below-linked article, for example, the Comptroller’s office speaks of “partnering” with law enforcement agencies - thereby suggesting that the Comptroller does not really see ITSELF as a law enforcement agency:
https://www.osc.ny.gov/investigations
Therefore, yesterday’s OSC transmittal letter suggests to me that any POL§87(2)(e) withholding of FOIL’d documents by OSC, may have been done to protect the continued work of one or more other agencies that would in fact be properly characterized as “law enforcement agencies”. Waiting in the wings.
As I have previously published as de facto warnings to Mayor Bruce Tucker and to those other individuals that acted in concert with him on the 447-477 Piermont Avenue project and other Tucker malfeasance, “Other guests may be coming”.
And, as I have previously warned the sycophantic enablers of Bruce Tucker - if you have any information on the corruption that has characterized Piermont Village government since 2018, it would definitely be in your own personal best interests to come forward with it now and bring it to the New York State Comptroller now before further law enforcement action might be taken – provided that the same information is not already contained in the massive FOIL production that I received today, that is.
After all, I already saw a lot of familiar names in those “.pdf”s.
John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Founder, “Unhand Piermont!”
Town of Orangetown, New York
