Frank DeCarlo And Craig Weis Purge Jerry Polidoro From The Reinstated LLC Record; Haul Off To Hackensack.

 

Breadcrumbs For Piermont, From The RCBJ Succubus.

https://rcbizjournal.com/2024/05/12/legal-beat-town-of-clarkstown-subject-to-second-attorneys-fee-award-for-foil-denials/

“Legal Beat”: Town Of Clarkstown Subject To Second Attorney’s Fee Award For FOIL Denials.
May 12, 2024. Rcbizjournal.
RCBJ-Audible (Listen For Free)
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“Courts Have Awarded Litigants Attorney’s Fees In Two Separate Cases Where Clarkstown Denied Having Documents Subject To FOIL”.
LEGAL BEAT
 
A former Town of Clarkstown department head has secured a yet-to-be-determined attorney’s fee award in a lawsuit aimed at compelling the town to provide documents through a FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request.
 
Eric Hammermeister-Kahn, the town’s former Superintendent of Parks and Recreation, was awarded attorney’s fees in an Order issued by Rockland County Supreme Court Justice Thomas Zugibe. The Article 78 case filed last December charged that petitioner was entitled to a transcript of an interview between himself and a town-hired investigator who questioned him about workplace practices.
 
This is the second time in the last six months the Town of Clarkstown has been subject to having to pay attorney’s fees to litigants in FOIL litigation. In November 2023, after losing on appeal, the town agreed to pay attorneys for Ateres Bais Yaakov Academy of Rockland $25,000 for[sic] attorney’s fees. The yeshiva had sought documents regarding the town’s acquisition of the Grace Baptist Church, to[sic] which the [T]own claimed that none existed.  That settlement and payment is separate and distinct from the $200,000 agreement the town also made with the yeshiva to settle the $10 million RLUIPA suit.
 
The Hammermeister-Kahn lawsuit, which names George Hoehmann “as FOIL Appeals Officer” for the town and the Town[sic] of Clarkstown, alleges the town acted illegally when it denied Hammermeister-Kahn access to a stenographer’s transcript of his statement given to a legal consultant at the Clarkstown Town Hall on Sept. 18, 2023.
 
This is the second time in the last six months the Town of Clarkstown has been subject to having to pay attorneys fees to litigants in FOIL litigation.
 
On June 1, 2023, Hammermeister-Kahn had been told by then-Town Attorney Craig Johns that he was under investigation for “possible use of Town computers by Clarkstown personnel for political purposes”, the lawsuit said. On July 18, the town hired attorney Arthur Riegel at a rate of $3,000 per day to conduct employee interviews and make a recommendation to the town board.
 
In the September interview, Hammermeister-Kahn says that he had been discriminated against by the town due to his “sexual preference”, according to the transcript which is now part of the court record. Hammermeister-Kahn is gay. He also believes he received inadequate training and did not get the same respect from Hoehmann and senior staff that other department heads[sic] enjoyed.
 
Although the transcript is nearly 85 pages, what jumps out[sic] is a dispute over an invitation that Hammermeister’s[sic] department sent to the town’s two senior centers to host then-Democratic candidate Monica Ferguson as a speaker back in March of 2023. Ferguson was a Democrat running for town council in the upcoming November election. It’s unclear from the transcript exactly what Ferguson planned to talk to the seniors about, but Hammermeister-Kahn explains the conflict arose over the town’s policies regarding speakers who are elected officials or candidates prior to a November election. He said he got conflicting information from the [t]own [a]ttorney, the [s]upervisor’s office and the senior clubs regarding who can speak and when, ranging from 30 days to 90 days before a November election.
 
He told the investigator he was told[sic] there “was a policy in place. But through my research in trying to find this policy and asking questions nobody is able to produce this policy”.
 
Ultimately, he withdrew the invitation to candidate-Ferguson, and was called in to Town Attorney Craig Johns’ office shortly after the incident.
 
Hammermeister-Kahn told the investigator that “I’m in a hostile work environment right now and I’m being treated unfairly compared to other department heads”. He went on to explain that he was not “getting the praise I should be getting. It’s only negatives. They look for anything wrong or potentially could be wrong, whether it was an accident or not, and instead of training me and saying you did this wrong - here’s how you can do it better. It’s an attack on me”.
 
He also said, according to the transcript, that he was treated differently than other department heads, particularly as it related to requesting new vehicles. He said the highway superintendent had just received a $450,000 grant for new vehicles and the Department of Engineering & Facilities Management got a comparable grant. He said, “I’m still being told that they don’t have money to get new vehicles for upgrades that I need for my department”. He told the investigator the vehicles are 20 years old.
 
“There are no allegations of misconduct on anybody’s part”, the investigator said[,] at the outset.
 
On November 14, 2023, Hammermeister-Kahn’s attorney Richard Glickel made a FOIL application[sic] to Clarkstown for the transcript. A day later, the town denied the FOIL request. The town wrote, according to the lawsuit, that it did not “physically possess the requested documents”. Hammermeister-Kahn’s attorney appealed the decision. On Nov. 22, the town claimed: “the record was exempt from FOIL disclosure as attorney work product”.
 
FOILs are an important tool to give the public access to records of government. It is, in essence, part of the system of checks and balances, and it is problematic when governments attempt to thwart such underpinnings of American democracy. Courts have held, “In order to create a clear deterrent to unreasonable delays and denials of access and thus, encourage government to make a good faith effort to comply with the requirements of FOIL, the legislature has provided for the assessment of attorney’s fees and other litigation costs in FOIL proceedings”.
 
In filing the Article 78, Hammermeister-Kahn’s attorney asserted that “a party is always entitled to obtain a copy of his own statement and the transcribed minutes of the Town’s consultant’s interview of petitioner isn’t attorney work product and is not exempt or immune from disclosure”.
 
The lawsuit asserted that denial of access to the court reporter’s transcription was “arbitrary and capricious” or “an abuse of discretion and in violation of the Freedom of Information Law”.
 
Hammermeister-Kahn resigned from his position in January of 2024. His resignation was accepted by the Town Board on January 23, 2024. He did not receive a settlement, according to his attorney.  Hammermeister-Kahn has filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights.
 
On Jan. 29, 2024, Clarkstown produced the transcript which they previously denied having.
 
Justice Thomas Zugibe in his decision wrote that the “underlying FOIL request in now moot” and addressed the petitioner’s request for “reasonable” attorney’s fees.
 
The town says that because the requested transcript was ultimately produced “voluntarily”, the petition should be dismissed without an award of attorney’s fee and costs. But Zugibe wrote, relying in part on the appellate decision in the Ateres case: “Dismissal of the proceeding for mootness does not however preclude petitioner’s request for counsel fees”.
 
Essentially Zugibe’s decision recognizes it took the filing of the Article 78 against Clarkstown for the town to produce the FOIL documents and that it[sic] improperly denied the request.
 
Zugibe further wrote: “It is clear the petitioner substantially prevailed in this proceeding, and the only question is whether the [T]own has a reasonable basis for denying access to the requested records”.
 
And[sic] the Justice also pointed out that while the town’s contentions that it did not have the transcript at the time it was requested might be true, the town never told Hammermeister-Kahn that he would be provided with the transcript once the town received it.
 
In his opinion, Zugibe cites the case “Matter of Ateres Bais Yaakov Academy of Rockland v. Town of Clarkstown”, in which the town later reached a settlement to pay $25,000 in attorney’s fees and litigation costs. In that case, the trial court denied the yeshiva an attorney’s fee award, a denial that was reversed on appeal.
 
Glickel is seeking $16,136.72 in legal fees and costs. The town can contest the amount sought as unreasonable. It will be up to Justice Zugibe to decide the amount. The Town has also filed a Notice of Appeal.
 
https://rcbizjournal.com/2024/05/12/legal-beat-town-of-clarkstown-subject-to-second-attorneys-fee-award-for-foil-denials/

The Piermont Village Government Photo-Directory, Per Mayoral Exhortation.

"He also wants to make the Village’s website friendlier. 'There should be a picture of each official on it', he says, 'so if you see them on the street you can say [H]ello'".
- Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker, in his own words (Source: The Piermont Newsletter, Published by the Piermont Civic Association, Fall 2017).

So, you heard Mayor Bruce.

Today is the day to open up the Piermont Village Government Advent Calendar - sans black boxes:

https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/04/piermont-new-york-government-you-cant.html

Just in time for tonight's Piermont Planning Board "meeting".

So today let's once again talk about those individual local and public official figures including Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeal members and staff that purport to run your Village of Piermont, New York government. You will notice that comparatively few photos of these Piermont public officials are actually yet posted to the Village of Piermont public governmental Internet website page, even though it is now about seven (7) years after Mayor Bruce Tucker's failed initiative and exhortation above:

https://piermont-ny.gov/services/directory.php
https://piermont-ny.gov/
 

But that shouldn't surprise you. In seven (7) short years the Village of Piermont New York has also flooded out to disaster conditions, while Bruce and his buddies sold out the Village of Piermont to shady real estate developers. Do you want to know why? Ask the people depicted below.

Back to the Piermont Village Government Advent Calendar. Sure, you will find a few photos of these Piermont NY public officials here:
https://piermont-ny.gov/services/directory.php

 
But good luck finding photos of most of the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeal members on the Village of Piermont governmental website, for example.
 
So, why does the government of the Village of Piermont continue to refrain from posting the photos of so many of these public officials to the Village's Internet website, seven (7) years after Mayor Tucker's promise to the contrary? For that matter, why do the so-concealed individuals themselves tolerate the Village government's purposeful decision to try to suppress these public officials into a state of collective anonymity? After all, a few of those same individual public officials nevertheless post over a hundred photos of themselves, publicly, on social media - and there's a word for that. 

But seriously - why do these phantom public officials fail to identify themselves recognizably through the aegis and imprimatur of the Piermont governmental website – you know, the website bearing the Village of Piermont government seal that Piermont residents actually pay for?
 
Hmmm...
 
In this regard, give some credit to Mayor Bruce Tucker. He unabashedly puts his own photo out front, just as I would expect any ambitious politician to do. Or a front-man for a band, for that matter.

Yet your problem in the Village of Piermont, New York, is that your Village government, and especially its lugubrious "Boards", have to date been run like secret societies of the likes of the The Knights Templar, or Yale University’s inscrutable Skull and Bones.

And then it dawned on me. Why does that make even less sense here, in the context of the once-proud Village of Piermont? Well, it doesn't make sense here because your Village of Piermont is a relatively tiny little Village comprised of about 2,500 people. There should be nowhere for these small-minded Illuminati wannabes to hide.
 
Sayeth the people of Piermont - “Everybody knows each other here!”.
 
Or... DO they?
 
The fact is, virtually none of the homeowner residents of the Village whom I have thusfar canvassed have any clue who these Village of Piermont public officials are, with the possible exception of knowing that the Mayor's first name is Bruce and that he plays guitar. 

And that’s just crazy... 

And that’s exactly your problem... 

That’s precisely why this disgraceful initiative to permanently install The Ugliest Real Estate Development In The World at 447-477 Piermont Avenue ever happened to the Village of Piermont, New York. 

This proverbial train-wreck occurred for one main reason. The "public officials" of Village of Piermont government studiously enabled Jersey-Boy “Piermont Developers Limited Liability Company” to come in to trash your Village, while first making sure to cloak themselves in the process. While your Village is now being defiled and overrun, as we speak, these "public officials" hide like vampire bats in the darkness, save for a few encounters here and there with a few residents who actually make it to a few Village meetings.
 
Because of all that, it’s now Next Stop, Hackensack.
 
Yet amazingly, like Mayor Bruce observed in 2017, you have probably walked by these same public officials in the Village of Piermont on numerous occasions. You probably did so even today. On the Pier. Around the Flywheel. Buying an ice cream cone. Grabbing a table at Otto's. Having no idea that these individual public officials, concealing themselves in the relative anonymity of an oft-faceless Village of Piermont Internet website, were the same exact people responsible for spreading their arms of welcome to “Piermont Developers Limited Liability Company”. To build a 14-unit residential fetid abscess right smack in the middle of your picturesque and historic downtown. They hustled you. They walked right by you while they did it. And you didn’t even know who they were, even though most if not all of these public officials live in the Village of Piermont too.
 
Well that changes now.

How incongruous. Public figures trying not to be seen... SMH... Yet just because a public figure tries to hide out of the shame of their own individual actions and inactions, does not mean that they are anything other than a public figure. Ask Paris Hilton.
 
Additionally, the Village of Piermont has been having a really difficult month this past month. Two lawsuits. Media broadsides. Regulatory attention. A fomenting posse of residents. The individuals comprising Piermont Village “government” probably don’t have the bandwidth right now to rebuild the Village website to function more like a comprehensive corporate photo-directory – you know, a directory of the kind that a company might use if it was actually sophisticated, and a company wherein its employees actually took pride in their work and their work-product without hosing its customers in the process.
 
So here.
 
Meet the public officials who comprise your Village of Piermont Government – the "government" that is threatening to destroy your once-quaint Village forever. All photos and contact-information were gleaned by me, on April 26, 2024, from public-record sources. If you want to update me on their better contact-information as you discover it, then by all means update me. A few of these public figures are still trying to hide, notwithstanding their extremely public function.
 
I will be regularly updating this Blog entry with contact-information as the work coordinates for these public officials are further revealed, or else if they just skip town. For example, maybe some of the Planning Board and Zoning Board officials thusfar afraid to actually list their own work e-mail addresses on the Village of Piermont website, will finally decide to actually own up and not just rely on Catania and Usha. 

Then again, maybe crickets.
 
Those Piermont public officials who wish to disavow the “Piermont Developers Limited Liability Company” 447-477 Piermont Avenue development, can fax a signed letter to that effect at fax number 212-410-2380. The fax machine is on 24/7, it has paper in it, and it is ready to receive. If any such letter is written in a manner that demonstrates that the author can actually put two sentences together, I might even publish it.
 
In the meantime, don't wait for me. Act NOW. Phone these individual public officials. Fax them. E-mail them. Now that you can recognize them when you see them, speak to them face-to-face when you see them at Bunbury's. Let each of these people know, individually, what you really think about their collective Village government enablement of “Piermont Developers Limited Liability Company” and the disgusting 14-unit residential development threatening to trash your Village forever. Because if these "public officials" haven’t each and individually objected to the 447-477 Piermont Avenue development in writing yet, then they are part of the problem and part of the selfsame malicious enterprise. 

Period.
 
In making these outbound contacts to Piermont public officials, you may hear a number of them protest back to you that they never did anything to date to enable “Piermont Developers Limited Liability Company” to launch the ill-minded plan to debase the Village of Piermont.
 
Fine.
 
When they say that to you, challenge them. Challenge them to send you a signed writing expressing their unequivocal opposition to the plan of “Piermont Developers Limited Liability Company” to pave-over the site of a former Sunoco gasoline station with underground gasoline tanks at 447-477 Piermont Avenue in Piermont, New York, in favor of a hideous 14-unit unwanted residential development that no sane Village resident wants. For that matter, challenge them to fax a copy to 212-410-2380, too. Just don’t hold your breath waiting to receive those writings. 

I won't either.
 

And please remember. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. These people are already local officials. These people are already public officials. These people are already public figures. All photos and data are gleaned from the public record. Now it is up to you to make them even more famous than they already are.

YOUR VILLAGE OF PIERMONT, NEW YORK PHOTODIRECTORY

The Mayor, Trustees, and The Village Board

Mayor Bruce Tucker, of The Village of Piermont, New York.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258, extension 304.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
btucker@piermont-ny.gov
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Deputy Mayor Mark Blomquist, of the Village of Piermont, New York.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258, extension 304.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
mblomquist@piermont-ny.gov
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Trustee Robert Burns, of the Village of Piermont, New York.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258, extension 304.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
rburns@piermont-ny.gov
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Trustee Nathan Mitchell, of the Village of Piermont, New York.
Chair, Piermont Waterfront Resiliency Commission.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
NMitchell@piermont-ny.gov
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Trustee Michael E. Wright, of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
mwright@piermont-ny.gov
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Village Of Piermont Government Staff

Jennifer DeYorgi Maher - Clerk, and Treasurer, of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258, extension 303.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
clerk@piermont-ny.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michele Marzo, Deputy Clerk – Treasurer, of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258, extension 302.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
deputyclerk@piermont-ny.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sylvia Carbonell, Clerk, of the Village of Piermont, New York.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258, Option 1.

Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
receptionist@piermont-ny.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maggie Cavanaugh, Clerk – Building Department, of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258, Option 4.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
buildingclerk@piermont-ny.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charles (Charlie) Schaub, Building Inspector, of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258, Option 4.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
building@piermont-ny.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe Knizeski, Assistant Building Inspector, of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258, Option 4.
Fax: 1-845-359-0466.
building@piermont-ny.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Village Of Piermont Planning Board

 

Christian Catania, Clerk to the Boards, of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258
CCatania@piermont-ny.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel Spitzer, Planning Board Chair of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
desmdpc@mac.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ed Nelson – Member, Planning Board of the Village of Piermont, New York.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258.

CCatania@piermont-ny.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jerry Warshaw – Member, Planning Board, of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
CCatania@piermont-ny.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Stiefel - Member, Planning Board of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
CCatania@piermont-ny.gov

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christine McAndrews - Member, Planning Board of the Village of Piermont, New York

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
CCatania@piermont-ny.gov

------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Levy – Alternate Member, Planning Board of the Village of Piermont, New York.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
CCatania@piermont-ny.gov

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don Guyton – Alternate Member, Planning Board of the Village of Piermont, New York.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
CCatania@piermont-ny.gov

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Village Of Piermont Zoning Board Of Appeal (ZBA)

Usha Wright – Chair, Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) of the Village of Piermont, New York.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
usha.wright@gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Walter Cain – Member, Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
usha.wright@gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter T. Metzler – Member, Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
usha.wright@gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Philip Tierno – Member, Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) 

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
usha.wright@gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greg[g] Manzione – Member, Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) of the Village of Piermont, New York.

[The Village apparently misspelled Gregg's first name on the Village website].

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
usha.wright@gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rochelle Spooner - Alternate Member, Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) of the Village of Piermont, New York.

Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
usha.wright@gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kevin Timoney - Alternate Member, Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) of the Village of Piermont, New York.
Phone: 1-845-359-1258.
usha.wright@gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------