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Archives for April 2016

The United States v. Christopher St. Lawrence

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Rockland County Times banner

This article first appeared in the Rockland County Times on April 28.

April 28, 2016–When Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence was arrested two weeks ago, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said it was the first municipal-bond related criminal securities fraud case brought against a public official.

St. Lawrence was charged with 22 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy for selling over $150 million in municipal bonds on fabricated financials. Those defrauded included the citizens of Ramapo and thousands of municipal bond investors around the country. The case will probably not get to court until next year, but hopefully, by that time, the New York State legislature and/or Governor Cuomo will have begun a long-overdue reform of New York’s Local Development Corp. law, which has enabled ethically challenged politicians like St. Lawrence across the state. [Read more…]

St. Lawrence’s two-step fails

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Ramapo police clear the meeting room April 27, 2016

Board watches as Police clear the meeting room

I guess the plan to sneak the first public meeting of the Town Board past the people and the press failed. The regularly scheduled meeting was to be on Thursday morning at 10 am, and there was a rally calling for St. Lawrence’s resignation already in the works. So, St. Lawrence calls a special meeting for Wednesday morning at 9:15. That introduces the quandary: which one to go to? Should the rally still be set for Thursday? What if our group shows up 45 minutes late, thinking the meeting is at 10?

Ah, how the indicted can scheme. Let ’em plan a rally for Thursday, we’ll call a special meeting for Wed with very short notice and change the usual time to 45 minutes earlier. Have the meeting, and then cancel Thursday’s meeting. If anyone does show up Wednesday, it’s a special meeting so the floor does not have to be opened up to the public for them to say bad things about us, and we’ve solved the problem of the first public encounter of  the indicted and the indignant.

Well, it didn’t work. [Read more…]

Provident Park renamed–and the $137k naming fee?

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Aerial photo of Provident Bank Park

Provident Bank Park Photo courtesy Lee Ross

There was a contract in place granting the naming rights of the  ballpark to Provident Bank. The bank signed on to a 10-year contract, paying $2.75 million for the right to have their name on the stadium. The annual payment made to the Town of Ramapo was $137,500.

Now that the “master builder” of the project has been indicted, it appears Provident Bank (now known as Sterling National Bank) is scrambling away from any association with the failed, and now toxic, enterprise. But what about the Town’s $137.5K? How was the contract terminated? We are in the 5th year, only halfway through the life of the contract. [Read more…]

Ramapo arrests show need for LDC reform

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Thomas DiNapoli

NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli

Letter to The Journal News from NYS Comptroller

Given the turn of events in the Town of Ramapo related to the questionable financing of a minor league baseball stadium, is there any doubt New York’s local development corporations need more oversight?

Commonly known as LDCs, these entities are private, not-for-profit corporations often created by, or for the benefit of, New York’s counties, cities, towns and villages to spur economic growth or serve other public purposes. In many cases, LDCs are used for economic development such as rehabilitating industrial plants or encouraging businesses to locate or stay in a particular region. [Read more…]

Letter: Freeze all Ramapo planning board actions

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Lance Millman mayor of Montebello

Mayor Lance Millman

Letter to The Journal News by Lance Millman, Mayor of Montebello

All Planning and Zoning Board members have been appointed and approved by the Town Board, presumably upon St. Lawrence’s recommendations. Land-use board member have been active in all aspects of the town’s approvals, including one priorzoning board member, now a Town Board member, who has been arrested.

All town Planning and Zoning Board activities must halt until all indictments have been handed down and until all information is released. One cannot help but now wonder how these boards have been operating.

In addition to a freeze on land-use board actions, the Town Board should immediately act on a moratorium on all building approval and zone changes until all has been made public and resolved. [Read more…]

Lawsuit: Ramapo sold property in Monsey it didn’t own

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Photo of the property on Saddle River Road

Photo: Michael D’Onofrio/The Journal News

“Ramapo has been selling surplus land to raise millions of dollars for the town’s depleted coffers — including one property the town apparently didn’t own.

River Equity Holdings in Monsey has now taken legal action against Ramapo and developer Mayer Jacobowitz to vacate the June sale. Jacobowitz bought the 15,181-square-foot parcel at 102a Saddle River Road for $195,000.

Records show the Town Board approved the sale after town Highways Superintendent Anthony Sharan recommended selling the property as surplus.

One hitch: A deed filed with the Rockland County Clerk’s Office and cited in the lawsuit shows River Equity, not Ramapo, owns the property, having bought it from Israel Wagschal on Sept. 12, 2012. [Read more…]

The mountain of evidence St. Lawrence’s attorney must climb

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Photo of St. Lawrence leaving federal court after preliminary hearing

Photo Gabriel Rom for The Journal News

Exactly one week from his last visit to the federal courthouse in White Plains, Christopher St. Lawrence returned, this time without handcuffs, in a complete suit, and forcing a smile alongside his attorney, Patrick Burke. He and co-defendant Aaron Troodler were there to sort out the details of how the mountain of evidence collected by the FBI will be made available to all their attorneys.

As reported by Gabriel Rom in The Journal News, the prosecution has more than 205,000 documents to build their criminal case against the two defendants.

Troodler’s attorney, Susan Wolf, explained to Judge Cathy Seibel that she had about half a terabyte of data to hand over to the prosecution. Rom reports the total for all the material is something over 2 terabytes of information for the attorneys to examine. [Read more…]

Moody’s to Revisit Ramapo’s funny numbers

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Moody's logoThe agency responsible for checking the creditworthiness  of municipalities when they want to apply for multi-million-dollar loans (municipal bonds) is Moody’s–full name, Moody’s Investors Services. Recently, the company downgraded their rating for the Town of Ramapo due to fiscal stress. Now, with the arrests of the Town Supervisor and Aaron Troodler for securities fraud, Moody’s has decided to take a second look at Ramapo books since they are the focus of 22 federal charges.

In a press release issued one day after the arrests, the ratings company announced: “Moody’s Places Ramapo, NY’s A1 GO Rating Under Review for Downgrade.” The rating will affect approximately $146 million in outstanding debt for the town. [Read more…]

Foreshadowing on the Website in 2014

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Image of the same story on website in 2014

Screen capture of a 2014 story on Preserve Ramapo website

An opinion piece by Bob Rhodes, posted on the PreserveRamapo website two years before the arrest of St. Lawrence on April 14, 2016, curiously foreshadowed the charge of “cooking the books” along with other similar details in the presentation by Preet Bharara in Manhattan last week.

Here’s the original piece:

Tip of the Iceberg

April 28, 2014  When a municipality transfers money from one accounting line to another it is supposed to pass a resolution authorizing the transfer. Under exceptional circumstances funds can even be loaned from one tax line to another, but they must be returned by the end of the year (with interest). Thanks to the persistence of Bob Romanowski we now know that $3 million in taxes that we thought we were paying for police services were transferred to the general tax line and never returned. [Read more…]

NYS Cracks down on Ramapo building inspections and orders compliance

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Logo of the State Division of Bldg CodesState gives Ramapo Building Department a series of 10 to 30 day deadlines to meet minimum state requirements.

The state has ordered Ramapo to strengthen enforcement of fire prevention and building codes, demanding the town provide documentation and upgrade its computer system to document inspections and the results.

The order from the state Division of Building Standards and Codes followed a series of re-inspections of buildings and schools across town.

The order signed by Executive Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Giardina follows recent allegations by the state Department of Education that Ramapo Fire Inspector Adam Peltz ignored serious violations at four private schools and allegedly filed false reports.

Peltz has been taken off inspections until an internal investigation into his work is completed, town officials said. [Read more…]