www.preserve-ramapo.com
Photo Ricky Flores/The Journal News
Former Spring Valley Mayor Noramie Jasmin is staying in prison after a federal appeals court denied an appeal of her bribe-taking conviction in April 2015.
Jasmin, a Democrat-elected Spring Valley official for more than a decade and mayor from 2008 to 2013, is serving a four-year sentence that started in February 2016 for corruption after selling her vote on a proposed community center and catering hall. [Read more…]
Photo: Ricky Flores/The Journal News
Rockland County Legislature Chairman Alden Wolfe has filed a defamation lawsuit against County Executive Ed Day in response to accusations posted on social media.
Wolfe, a Democrat, accused the GOP executive of libel and damaging his reputation in a 2015 Facebook post, according to a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in New City on Aug. 16. [Read more…]
Ken Zebrowski Photo Ricky Flores/The Journal News
“The state would have real power to force schools to comply with fire safety guidelines and verify inspections if legislation proposed by Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City, passes.
“If a school is unwilling to follow the law, we must put in place specific consequences,” Zebrowski said in a released statement. [Read more…]
“After community outrage followed the halving of an East Ramapo school trustee’s term due to a technical error, state Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee said she plans to propose a legislative fix to return Sabrina Charles-Pierre’s seat to full term.
Charles-Pierre ran unopposed for a two-year seat that expires in June 2018, but the school board votedin late July to invalidate the term because it discovered she was not sworn in within 30 days of the May board election results being certified. Charles-Pierre was then appointed to a seat that runs out in May 2017. [Read more…]
Attention! Inspector General on Deck
Posted on Rockland Voice Aug. 27
We all remember the two scenes from the movie, A Few Good Men, where Lance Corporal Harold Dawson refused to salute
Charles Falciglia Photo/Rockland Voice
Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, his attorney, as protocol requires when an officer enters or leaves an area – generally referred to as an Officer on Deck. The loud and clear message was he did not respect him. By the end of the movie the situation was reversed conveying the opposite message.
Fraud, waste, mismanagement, organized economic crime schemes, disorganized economic crime schemes, willful blindness and just good old fashioned corruption; fueled by partisan politics, a lack of business acumen, stupidity, unabashed laziness, personal economic survival, interlocking family relationships and just some miserable human beings, have been commonplace throughout the history of the world. Over the last decade Rockland County descended into a microcosm of all of the above. [Read more…]
Address given by Joe Chajmovicz Photo/Kimberly Redmond The Journal News
“Calls for the resignation of a newly-appointed member of the East Ramapo School Board are mounting amid accusations that the trustee does not live at his reported address.
Since Joe Chajmovicz’s appointment to a vacant seat in July, the school board has been criticized for naming someone not widely known to the public school community, and district parents have demanded he step down to allow for someone with ties to local education be named.
One of those parents, Romel Alvarez, said this past weekend, a group of about 15 people went to an address in Airmont, on Fawn Hill Drive, that Chajmovicz claims is his home, but discovered a family was renting it out. [Read more…]
Story by Joel Grossbarth posted in the Rockland County Times August 24, 2016
(The four Ramapo defendants facing federal charges have more to look forward to than fines, sanctions and prison time.)
A Federal Appeals Court has upheld the tactic of pension forfeiture in the fight against political corruption. [Read more…]
Photo of artist’s rendering Peter Carr/The Journal News
Community View in The Journal News by Steven Schultz
I can’t believe such a project would be considered for the proposed site. Then I remembered, it’s Ramapo and history shows that anything the community’s wealthy developers want, they get, regardless of costs and consequences to town residents.
The article includes photos of nice drawings of a large, New York City-style urban development with trees and landscaping, and even a few cars. Not surprisingly, they don’t show Route 59.
The drawings and the details of the plan are pure fantasy and a public deception. Six days a week, that location is already a dangerous traffic choke-point on Route 59. [Read more…]
Image from LoHud video of Local Activitists
“A year ago, a grassroots group called CUPON was formed by a Hillcrest resident who saw an urgent need to keep the area’s development in check.
Since then, that group has helped a handful of similar organizations spring up around Ramapo, a town with a long history of civic activism. They all share concerns similar to CUPON’s, which stands for Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods. [Read more…]
Triny Hertzberg of RASP Photo/John Meore The Journal News
“With two-and-a-half weeks to go before schools open in East Ramapo, it’s still not yet known if a beloved after-school program will be saved in time for the kids whose parents planned to send them after classes let out each day.
The Rockland After School Program (RASP) has served thousands of children since being launched in 1983 by offering them a place to hang out with friends, play games or get a jump start on homework. However, the program is no longer permitted to use the two rooms it leased from the district at Kakiat Elementary School after Executive Director Triny Hertzberg did not pay the rent. [Read more…]