They identified themselves as so-called “Oversight
Individuals” on the below service-description “Certifications” contained in multiple
signed writings submitted to New York State grant-money authorities. Because
of that, Piermont collected tens of thousands of dollars in state money because
of it. Under color and claim of right.
Yet taken together, Sylvia Welch and Bruce Tucker, each acting as public officials on behalf of Piermont village government, affixed their respective signatures to hastily- and illegibly-scrawled handwritten quotation-marks flippantly signifying “Ditto” on these New York State Certification forms, no less than eighty-three (83) separate times. (See below). That indicates exactly how seriously Welch, Tucker, and Piermont Village Hall took these New York State grant money Certifications – with “took” being the operative word. This was yet another abuse of governmental function of the failed Bruce Tucker mayoral regime.
These newly-discovered primary-source documents were produced to me by the New York State Department of State (NYSDOS) pursuant to New York State’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).
Depending upon the day or the mood, you might see Piermont’s Sylvia Welch PhD referring to herself as the Village’s “Grant Writer”, “Grants Administrator”, “Oversight Individual”, or “Consultant” in connection with the subject NYSDOS grant money and the grant-writing services which induced them.
When reviewing these posted “.jpeg” documents below, please keep in mind that, by my interim count thusfar, Sylvia Welch PhD alias “Doctor Ditto” collected around US$20,000 from the Village of Piermont for her services. Perhaps ironically, and perhaps unacceptably, the money grabbed by Doctor Ditto appears to have been in turn sourced from the self-same New York State grants as authorized by NYSDOS and by the New York State Comptroller (OSC). Perhaps even more ironically, that very same Comptroller is now auditing Piermont and Bruce Tucker over Piermont’s finances. The approximate US$20,000 collected by Sylvia Welch may turn out to be a significantly greater dollar-figure number at end of day, once final calculations are made, and particularly once the currently-ongoing OSC Audit of Bruce Tucker and Village of Piermont finances concludes.
Please also keep in mind that the Village of Piermont - through Mayor Bruce Tucker and “Grants Administrator” Sylvia Welch as “Oversight Individuals” - were required by law to sign, certify, and submit these documents to NYSDOS in order to legitimize Piermont’s receipt of the NYSDOS grant money. These documents were intended by NYSDOS to be accurate timesheets of “volunteers” during 2021 and 2022 on (A) the Piermont code update project and (B) the Piermont Comprehensive Plan project. Piermont’s certification and submission of these documents to NYSDOS was required in order for the Village to be excused from otherwise paying-in “matching” funds in connection with the associated NYSDOS grant monies.
In other words, what you are looking at below is a roadmap. It shows how Piermont Village Hall snatched tens of thousands of dollars from NYSDOS, from OSC, from New York State, and from taxpaying New York residents. The Village of Piermont took New York State grant money over a period of years, in exchange for, in part, these slovenly-looking forms. I'll be blogging the underlying grant applications and other related documents in short order.
While the names of other individuals are indicated on the below documents as “volunteers”, these Piermont “time-sheets” appear to have been submitted to NYSDOS by Bruce Tucker and Sylvia Welch. As you will see from reviewing them yourself, these documents are best characterized as follows:
Yet taken together, Sylvia Welch and Bruce Tucker, each acting as public officials on behalf of Piermont village government, affixed their respective signatures to hastily- and illegibly-scrawled handwritten quotation-marks flippantly signifying “Ditto” on these New York State Certification forms, no less than eighty-three (83) separate times. (See below). That indicates exactly how seriously Welch, Tucker, and Piermont Village Hall took these New York State grant money Certifications – with “took” being the operative word. This was yet another abuse of governmental function of the failed Bruce Tucker mayoral regime.
These newly-discovered primary-source documents were produced to me by the New York State Department of State (NYSDOS) pursuant to New York State’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).
Depending upon the day or the mood, you might see Piermont’s Sylvia Welch PhD referring to herself as the Village’s “Grant Writer”, “Grants Administrator”, “Oversight Individual”, or “Consultant” in connection with the subject NYSDOS grant money and the grant-writing services which induced them.
When reviewing these posted “.jpeg” documents below, please keep in mind that, by my interim count thusfar, Sylvia Welch PhD alias “Doctor Ditto” collected around US$20,000 from the Village of Piermont for her services. Perhaps ironically, and perhaps unacceptably, the money grabbed by Doctor Ditto appears to have been in turn sourced from the self-same New York State grants as authorized by NYSDOS and by the New York State Comptroller (OSC). Perhaps even more ironically, that very same Comptroller is now auditing Piermont and Bruce Tucker over Piermont’s finances. The approximate US$20,000 collected by Sylvia Welch may turn out to be a significantly greater dollar-figure number at end of day, once final calculations are made, and particularly once the currently-ongoing OSC Audit of Bruce Tucker and Village of Piermont finances concludes.
Please also keep in mind that the Village of Piermont - through Mayor Bruce Tucker and “Grants Administrator” Sylvia Welch as “Oversight Individuals” - were required by law to sign, certify, and submit these documents to NYSDOS in order to legitimize Piermont’s receipt of the NYSDOS grant money. These documents were intended by NYSDOS to be accurate timesheets of “volunteers” during 2021 and 2022 on (A) the Piermont code update project and (B) the Piermont Comprehensive Plan project. Piermont’s certification and submission of these documents to NYSDOS was required in order for the Village to be excused from otherwise paying-in “matching” funds in connection with the associated NYSDOS grant monies.
In other words, what you are looking at below is a roadmap. It shows how Piermont Village Hall snatched tens of thousands of dollars from NYSDOS, from OSC, from New York State, and from taxpaying New York residents. The Village of Piermont took New York State grant money over a period of years, in exchange for, in part, these slovenly-looking forms. I'll be blogging the underlying grant applications and other related documents in short order.
While the names of other individuals are indicated on the below documents as “volunteers”, these Piermont “time-sheets” appear to have been submitted to NYSDOS by Bruce Tucker and Sylvia Welch. As you will see from reviewing them yourself, these documents are best characterized as follows:
- Written in antiquarian cursive.- Sloppy.- Lazily handwritten.- Incomplete.- Often illegible. (Just like Trustee Michael Wright’s election petitions):- Back-dated – in some cases, for years.- Containing time-expenditures noticeably and implausibly rounded-up to integers sans any decimal-point in almost all cases.
Here are the names of the individuals for whom “volunteer” services were “certified” in the documents at an apparently-illusory rate of US$15 per hour:
-Chris Sanders, former Piermont Mayor.-Klaus Jacob.-Nate Mitchell, current Piermont mayoral candidate.-Ray Fusco.-Rod Johnson.-Sylvia Welch alias “Doctor Ditto” herself.-Usha Wright (albeit misspelled as “Usah”[sic] on the “certified” 2022 time-sheet corresponding to her).
Yet the most outrageous part about these ersatz Piermont “time-sheets”, is the manner in which Bruce Tucker, Sylvia Welch, and the Village of Piermont therein dwelled in The Land Of Ditto.
Rather than bothering to inscribe the “Descriptions of Services Provided” where required on the form - much less actually taking the time to type out those service-descriptions legibly - instead, all you see on many of the service-description lines, are four successive scrawled handwritten quotation marks apparently inscribed by Welch or Tucker, like so:
“ “ “ “
Yep… That’s right.
Dittos.
Eighty-three freaking times.
These documents - as “prepared”, signed, “certified”, and submitted by two Piermont public officials, in the form of a “Grant Administrator” and a Mayor of the subject municipality - were a disrespectful insult to any grant professional who received them, including those at NYSDOS. They were also a disrespectful insult to OSC, New York State, and New York State resident taxpayers.
Moreover, the lack of care taken in the preparation and submission of these documents would strongly suggest a lack of care in the making of, and accounting for, the time-expenditures themselves ab initio. These shoddy documents put the entirety of the time-sheets and therefore the entirety of the subject Piermont grant monies into serious question and doubt.
The chicken-scratches read like something that bookies wrote on flash-paper in 1930’s Chicago.
And here’s the clincher. As “Oversight Individual”, here is how Sylvia Welch herself, and in some cases Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker himself, “certified” these so-called “time-sheets”:
“By signature, I certify that this time log represents an accurate representation of the hours worked towards completion of tasks related to the contract listed above.” [Emphasis supplied].
The only thing that these documents “certify”, is the need for OSC to audit these time-sheets and those that signed them.
