I won

Hello,

I won an appeal, Freedom of Information request against Columbia County. 

The county is hiding evidence that they have many no show, fake jobs. The most obvious, as ran on the front page of the Albany Times Union, involves the felony larceny of Tal Rappleyea. 

Rappleyea routinely billed in excess of 24 hours per day. He was paid by municipalities without submitting as much as a scrap of paper. The comptroller knows about it and refuses to investigate. The attorney general claims no jurisdiction. The local DA Czajka promoted Rappleyea as prosecutor in one town AFTER acknowledging Rappleyea's criminality in a meeting. The state police refuse to act. Pat Grattan, chair of the CCBOS, knows this practice of theft, millions stolen, continues even now. 

Rappleyea is not alone. New Lebanon paid Andrew Howard 24,000 for 45 minutes of "work." That works nicely with his fake county job.

Paul Czajka's secretary was Rappleyea's wife and he refuses to get off the case. Some more background here. 

http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/ad3/Decisions/2014/516119.pdf

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Attorney-math-1-day-26-hours-4026701.php

Oh, and I have an art opening next week and some classes for children and teens around town. Knowledge is power and all that, democracy, etc. 

international law

This article says American foreign policy is arrogant and Obama is a huge disappointment. This article is about the terrible abuses in North Korea. This wikipedia page is about the Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1951. This disgraceful law is emblematic of US paranoid nationalism. In this piece, Abdulrahman's grandfather points out that Barack Obama killed a 16 year old boy in cold blood for no coherent reason (and many other people) on October 14, 2011 and has kept it up since then.

how to fix the world

Today happens to be my birthday. So, to celebrate I would like you to indulge me and read this article. I will also like to take a break and write a bit, and in a few short paragraphs diagnosis the problems of the human race and fix them all.

glencadia dog camp

I won in state court

I've been meaning to blog about this case in Half Moon and about the hypocracy (like hypocrisy but as a form of government, like autocracy) of this charge when the County Attorney's office is stealing way more and the DA know ALL about it and does nothing, same with the state police and comptroller. 

But before I could write about that, I won in state court. To review, I paid a kickback to the Stuyvesant Town Attorney Tal Rappleyea of $437.50 in June 2010 and got a permit to run a business. The Zoning Officer Gerald Gerry Ennis showed up wanting his grease too, which I refused to supply. So, the zoning officer revoked my permit.

sunshine again, another morning, another long night

The state police officer said, in audio, "I don't know what your agenda is."

(more audios to come)

Now, I should be able to report a crime in a purple thong, a full length Indian feather headdress, holding a picture of Che Gevara. If the crime is a crime, the police should take my statement and investigate.

here is the resolution against me with comments

Here is the resolution.

 I can't believe the town board is passing resolutions against me and the zoning board is hiring lawyers to write 16 rambling lying "resolutions" about me. I was running a small business, minding my own business, doing nothing wrong, when all of a sudden I was attacked by a corrupt town. In the intervening almost 2 years I got a much thicker skin and got used to a lot of crap. But still, sometimes I stop and think about it and am just appalled.

This guy, the lawyer, Everett, he really should have known better. Just look at the resolution he wrote and told the board to pass, which they dutifully did. It's obviously dishonest and unfair. Just read it.

The lawyer in question is of course David R. Everett of Whiteman Osterman and Hanna. I know this PDF is long -- 33 pages -- but by reading what they said and my response you get a fairly interesting dialogue with two parties, one speaking the language called truth, where reality matters, and the other, Everett, speaking the language of malign and lie, manipulating every statement to make me look bad although he does not even allege that I actually violated any rule, then cite the rule.

Like I said at the hearing, can anyone tell me what I did wrong?

It's just an absurd hit job. Read it.

admission of guilt? re-writing history? making up laws? ignoring chronology? what?

Here is the audio of the resolution passed by the Stuyvesant Town Board tonight authorizing  David Everett second partner and lead attorney in this case.

So here they are appointing a firm after the firm has already handled three planning board meetings, one appearance as special prosecutor, one appearance before the zoning board?

Shouldn't you approve the special counsel first, then have the special counsel write tortured secret memos explaining to the zoning board of appeals that they may not be a zoning board of appeals? The tortured secret memo already exists.

Shouldn't you approve the special prosecutor to pursue a charge he knows is false without approval of a judge before he actually writes motions? The case is already dismissed.

No, the town would say, we did approve the special counsel first in an executive session.

No, I say, you didn't. All you did, and it was illegal, was start the process of looking for a lawyer, not hiring one. And only for Planning.

Okay, town, why? Why did you hire special counsel? It can't be because I sued you. I sued you on March 28. You signed the contract on March 10.

Why? In the audio above the reason seems to be that I'm so terrible that I have all these cases and am filing all these FOILs (two FOILs!) and am so bad they have to get someone in here to put a stop to my lawlessness?

But all the charges against me are false, get dismissed, fall away, all false. You can't really blame me for having too many cases, can you?

I was charged with the same offense THREE TIMES. I know the constitution says you can't do that, but they did: planning, zoning and criminal court about the same thing: dog barking.

The charge of loud barking dogs is impossible according to the laws of physics because the site where the dogs are kept is 1000 feet away from any neighbor or road and sound tests, affirmed by the editor of the leading peer review acoustics journal in the world, says that the barking contributes ZERO decibels to the ambient noise level at 1000 feet.

That's what I did wrong? In other words, not a damn thing?

I am accused of an offense that is impossible three times. Then, because I have so many cases pending, and therefore must be a terrible menace to society, the town has to hire the most expensive law firm in Albany. But they will vote to approve the firm 4 months after the firm starts working and retroactively legalize the firm.

"Hello, Heavan, can I speak to Franz Kafka?"

"I'm sorry he's before the Stuyvesant board right now trying to find out what he did wrong."

First of all, obviously, David Everett should have to return the money he has received to date. He was working without legal authorization up this point, despite the town board trying to re-write history.

But it is still not clear that he is now legal.

At 1:20 Valerie Bertram says, "Whereas on February 10, 2011, the Town Board authorized the hiring of David R. Everett.

What? No they didn't. Read the minutes. Do you see the name of the firm in there anywhere? Zoning? Criminal court? The illegal executive session in February did not authorize the hiring of this firm. The illegal executive session authorized the supervisor to look for an attorney.

And the illegal session was illegal.

Tonight's resolution depends on the February 10, 2011 executive session due to the statement above. But that session was in violation of public officer's law, given the reason "personnel" before the executive session, and retaining special counsel without firing the old lawyer does not fall under the definition of personnel. Also, "personnel" is insufficient reason to call an executive session. Lastly the minutes of that session were never submitted and voted on in an open session and were not even written within 10 days of the end of the executive session.

So, on July 14, 2011 they passed a resolution to authorize something that has already happened without authorization based on a resolution to do something completely different that was passed during an illegal meeting.

Well, that clears things up.

Next, as 1:43 Valerie Bertram says she signed a retainer agreement withthe albany law firm on March 10. No way she can do that. She just spent money based on an executive session, an illegal one to boot.

And did she really sign a contract on March 10? Can we see it? Are there any phone records showing a pattern of phone calls? Where was it signed? Who was there?

Next, at around 2 minutes, we hear that they didn't break any laws. So why this resolution? If the executive session was legal, then you don't need a resolution in July.

Re-affirm? What kind of resolution is it that re-affirms something that never happened? The town never before voted to hire WOH, the law firm. In February they voted to look for another lawyer.

And what is this anyway, hiring a law firm to deal with one guy? Can you hire a firm to deal with one guy just because he's beating you? Some guy comes up here with no lawyer, Tal can handle them but if someone comes with some good lawyers and is clearly completely innocent, we'll go get the big guns?

That's got to be some kind of illegal. No way. Just for me?

Someone complained about dog barking? It's not even true. Therefore we have to hire the most expensive law firm in Albany?

You have to be smoking something they don't grow on this planet.

You didn't hire them because I sued you.

Then at the end they retroactively legalize the special counsel, which they claim, falsely, they already did.

I still say the special counsel is illegally representing the corrupt organization known as the government of the Town of Stuyvesant because the resolution does not acknowledge that the executive session was a screw up.

 Now the reason is not that I said that Tal helped himself to $10,000 or that I sued the town. The reason for this is just I suck?

You are not going to lawyer your way out of this one. Even Mr. Wolf won't help.


Pulp Fiction Mr. Wolf Scene - Watch more Funny Videos

greene columbia, columbia greene, scratch scratch

Here is the story about the DA's brother's sweatheart DWI deal.

Timothy McEachern, 46, is the brother-in-law of Columbia County District Attorney Beth Cozzolino. From the Times Union:

Her office recused itself from the case shortly after it was brought, the aide noted, asking that it be handled by a special prosecutor from the office of Greene County District Attorney Terry Wilhelm.

For two weeks, Wilhelm declined to return calls from the Times Union about the case. 

"This only points out that if you're a member of the club in Columbia County, you'll be taken care of. It's a classic example," said Gene Keeler, a former Columbia County district attorney who is seeking the office in the November election. He is running as a Democrat; both Cozzolino and Wilhelm are Republicans.

Meanwhile, Beth Cozzolino serves as special prosecutor in the Evan Spitz case in Greene County. About Spitz case. "Evan Spitz is the son of the Greene County Jail superintendent."

Maybe this is a case of you scratch my back, I scratch yours.

How about this: Columbia and Greene counties look to counties other than each other for special prosecutors. Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna seem to be available, big Albany law firm. Try them!

petty, trivial, negligible, measly, shabby, slight, frivolous

This is a petty blog post. The piece with the neighbors is petty and there is no way to discuss it without presenting the blatant pettiness of the whole thing.

If you are new to this blog, skip this entry until you have looked at some of the stuff on this list. Did you look at it? Okay, now on to petty-land.

How many times can I say petty? trivial, insignificant, base, casual, cheap, contemptible, frivolous, inconsequent, inconsiderable, inessential, inferior, irrelevant, junior, lesser, light, little, lower, measly, minor, narrow-minded, negligible, nickel-and-dime, niggling, paltry, peanut, penny-ante, pettifogging, picayune, piddling, scratch, secondary, shabby, shallow, shoestring, slight, small, small-minded, subordinate, trifling, two-bit, unimportant

One aspect of this conflict with the town of Stuyvesant is that a tiny group of disgruntled and unhappy neighbors have obliged the zoning officer by complaining about me when invited to do so by Gerry Ennis. Most people in the neighborhood have been great and supportive... thank you.

...a reservoir of gullible people...

I haven't written too much about this small cabal riled up by the town government to offer cover for their otherwise bizarre campaign against me since the people involved seem to be lead astray rather than up to no good on their own.

I would much rather focus on the roles of the bigger fish, people with some authority, as I do here. For example, I have to talk about special prosecutors and Beth Cozzolino, not this petty stuff... but prosecutors can wait a day or so.

This post shows Gerry Ennis encouraging complaints and fingering me without investigation. The key phrase in that link is "he told me." Also, "new kennel" is interesting since I have been in operation for more than 4 years at that point. He just fingered me because he wanted to get me. Mary Kline lives 1600 feet away from my barn.

The neighbor in the video below is from a household 1000 feet away. This neighbor wrote a letter of support when I went to the planning board in 2009. Then in April 2010, her husband told me there was no problem. In March of 2011, Patty said this.

Yet the husband, Fritz, signed an affidavit that lead to a criminal charge against me in January 2011. Interesting, Fritz did not use the word "loud" in that inditement instrument.

Below we see Patty videoing my barn. I video her videoing me and then we talk. She says that the difference between the time she wrote the glowing letter in May 2009 and November 2009 is that she changed the configuration of her yard and removed plants and other junk.

So, therefore, my business should be shut down?

Why does the town encourage, invite or solicit these types of complaints? Why does the town coordinate complaints with people who are not credible?

My beef is with the town. Still, if there weren't people in the neighborhood so easily lead astray, it would be harder for this corrupt town government to operate.

The town should be interested in reducing conflict and insisting on verifiable, objective measures, not collaborating with obsessive people who's story does not make sense.

And the story obviously does not make sense.

laundry list

I started this blog on January 1, 2011. In the past seven months I have written about a number of issues relating to the government of the town of Stuyvesant and Columbia County and I wanted to clarify the list here, for the record, for anyone new to this conflict.

Stuyvesant Town Attorney helped himself to $10,000 in public money without paperwork with the approval of the supervisor. He also submitted a fraudulent invoice, and demanded payment from an applicant before the planning board in violation of policy. 

When I told the supervisor about this problem, the town hit me with a criminal citation based on a previously unknown law, a charge that defies the laws of physics.

The town assessor listed a Hudson river resort as a tax exempt state park for tax purposes.

The town board held an illegal executive session and secretly and illegally allocated money to a law firm. 

The zoning officer either did surveillance on my house or lied in the public record about it. 

The supervisor used her position as chair of the public safety committee in the Board of Supervisors to try to get officers to arrest Martin Roby for repeatedly FOILing to see the bank records with account numbers visible to track wire transfers between accounts, a problem in other towns. 

The town hired a special prosecutor without permission. 

Town board member made threats of illegal retaliation on video.

Someone did some petty weirdness.

The town board held an illegal executive session and spent money illegally on a special counsel and special prosecutor. 

The town FOIL officer ignores requests for documents and the town has no effective FOIL appeal system.  There was this.

The zoning officer revoked my business permit without evidence of a violation and without the authority to do so. Many of his statements are clearly false and indeed impossible.

The planning board, supervisor and town attorney abused a good faith offer to settle the permit dispute as a reason to attempt to revoke the permit in another way. Here is my reward for offering to settle. 

The supervisor maintains her position as chair of the county ethics board. 

The chairman of the county board of supervisors Roy Brown is entirely aware of all these allegations, did no independent investigation and has refused to consider a process to determine if the supervisor Bertram should retain the position as chair of the ethics board. 

The District Attorney Beth Cozzolino is aware of allegations of a pattern of fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and abuse in Stuyvesant Town government.

County Attorney Robert Fitzsimmons is aware of these allegations and has suggested no action regarding Bertram's position as chair of the ethics board. The issue of government lawyers reoccurs in this case.

I am wholly innocent of all charges and there is no evidence I ever did anything wrong and yet I have spent $60,000 in legal fees and other expenses to deal with this town harassment. Here is the narrative.

Due to systematic failure in local ethics enforcement in New York State, I filed a suit in Federal Court.

And don't forget kidnapping Santa's elves.

possible illegal misappropriation of funds, apparent violations of law by town board

This post deals with the way the Town of Stuyvesant (12173) hired Whiteman Osterman and Hanna, an Albany law firm, as special counsel, David Everett, attorney, and William Nolan, attorney in 2011. The argument below suggests that this process was illegal and that WOH should return potentially illegal payments to the taxpayers of Stuyvesant in order to avoid the impression that WOH seeks to benefit from careless spending of public money.

Here is a Q&A on open meetings:

The Law provides for closed or "executive" sessions under certain circumstances prescribed in the Law. It is noted that an executive session is not separate from an open meeting but rather is a portion of an open meeting during which the public may be excluded.

Okay, the meeting that lead to these minutes was held during a public meeting as per the law.

The Law requires that a public body take several steps to close the meeting. First, a motion must be made during an open meeting to enter into executive session; second, the motion must identify the general area or areas of the subject or subjects to be considered; and third, the motion must be carried by a majority vote of the total membership of a public body.

That happened in February 2011. They did these things.

Citing "personnel matters" is not a sufficient ground for going into an executive session.

Stop. That was the only reason cited. Valerie Bertram said, "We are going into executive session to discuss a personnel matter." The board agreed and off they went. No more information.

The motion to go into executive session should be more specific. For example, a motion could be made to enter into executive session to discuss "the employment history of a particular person." The person would not have to be identified.

No, nothing more than "personnel" was given as the reason. You would have never known they were hiring special counsel, if they did in fact hire special counsel as per minutes. And I am not convinced that this executive session and these minutes correspond correctly.

It is important to point out that a public body cannot vote to appropriate public monies during a closed session. Therefore, although most public bodies (except school boards in most instances) may vote during a properly convened executive session, any vote to expend public monies must be taken in public.

Stop. No. They hired special counsel and spent a ton of public money, maybe 5% to 10% of the total annual budget as a result of this executive session.

So was it a personnel issue anyway?

Here is the legal definition:

... the medical, financial, credit or employment history of a particular person or corporation, or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation...

No medical issues, no issues of credit. We can forget those. Tal was not dismissed, suspended, demoted, disciplined, removed or promoted, as indicated by board members in subsequent meetings.

How about "appointment" and "employed"? Special counsel might be an "appointment" but you would have to actually appoint the special counsel by name, not create the category to be filled later. The contract would have to come first, then the appointment, not the other way around.

In the case of the criminal charges handled by Whiteman Osterman and Hanna as special prosecutor in court based on this executive session, that would only be after approval by a judge.

So here are the outstanding issues with this process:

1. The executive session in February was called and approved in a public meeting but the rationale for the meeting "personnel" was too vague to allow for the executive session.

2. The issue discussed was not in fact a personnel matter as defined by the law.

3. Money was spent as a result of this executive session, which is not allowed.

4. A special prosecutor for criminal court emerged from this executive session in violation of criminal court procedure.

5. The minutes were never entered into the public record and no vote to approve the minutes was taken in subsequent town board meetings. There is no evidence that the minutes were written within 10 days of the session and there are no dates by the signatures on the minutes linked above.

6. The minutes only notes "planning" special counsel but the firm has acted on the zoning boards and in criminal court.

7. Attorney client privilege claims have resulted from this flawed process which may shield further errors and violations.

8. The minutes authorize the supervisor to enter into a contract which would then have to be approved in public meeting and no such contract was entered into the public record.

Conclusion: Large amounts of public money have been misappropriated without legal authorization. Claims of attorney privilege have been abused by an attorney without legal standing to do so.

Remediation: Whiteman Osterman and Hanna should return all funds to the taxpayers of Stuyvesant and this process should be restarted and done over legally and publicly at the next public town board meeting. All records held as privileged should be released on the town website.

Fake response: Since I didn't get a real response, I wrote my own fake response.

fewer $20 an hour jobs versus one $450 an hour job

New to the blog? Try this entry, sort of background, or curious about town lawyers, try this entry.


Issue one: was David Everett hired legally?

David R. Everett of Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna may not be the legal attorney for the zoning or planning board and may have no attorney-client relationship with any board or entity of the town of Stuyvesant.

Here is the moment when Tal left and Dave came in.

Why? Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna was hired by the town board in special session, as noted by Valerie Bertram in the June town board meeting. The extraordinary thing is that the firm was hired to handle zoning, planning and criminal charges against me, including services as a special prosecutor in criminal court. I think the issue of the special prosecutor might involve some violations of criminal proceedings, statutes dealing with prosecution, as normally hiring a special prosecutor has to be requested from a judge and is only granted when the regular prosecutor has some kind of close relationship with the accused, which Tal and I don't have. How you hire a special prosecutor seems to be a contentious issue in every case and not something one side can just do arbitrarily. But that's a side note for now since I blogged that issue before. Let's get to the main argument for this post.

Was this executive session legal according to Public Officers Law, article 7? I'm not sure.

§105. Conduct of executive sessions.

1. Upon a majority vote of its total membership, taken in an open meeting pursuant to a motion identifying the general area or areas of the subject or subjects to be considered, a public body may conduct an executive session

Full stop. I filed the lawsuit on Friday, it was served on Saturday, March 26, 2011 around noon. David Everett took over from Tal Rappleyea at the Monday, March 28, 2011 planning board hearing at 7 PM. The reason for removing Tal and putting David R. Everett of Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna is the lawsuit, nothing else, so there could not have been a session prior to Saturday, March 26, 2011 or authorization for the session at the public meetings in March. You can't have an executive session to discuss a lawsuit until you have been notified that the suit is filed.

So the executive session had to happen between Saturday, March 26, 2011 and Monday, March 28, 2011. There was no public meeting in which an executive session could have been voted on between those the filing and change of attorneys.

But an executive session has to be part of a public meeting. The town board, it seems, conducted an executive session without approving and announcing the session in a public hearing. I see nothing in the law that remotely suggests such an action can be legal.

The legality of Mr. Everett's role in planning and zoning generally hinges entirely on the legality of the special session. I think. Anyone disagree? Why? What did I miss? Links?

Let's continue with the Public Officer's Law.

for the below enumerated purposes only, provided, however, that no action by formal vote shall be taken to appropriate public moneys:

Stop. Hiring Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna involved the spending of money. This firm is NOT involved in the federal lawsuit. Can the town legally pay Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna? Maybe they can hire the firm in executive session but when it comes time to pay them, they need to make a public presentation. Public moneys were appropriated as a result of the executive session held between Saturday, March 26, 2011 and Monday, March 28, 2011, start of the planning board.

The vote to hire this firm has implication for the town budget, perhaps 5 to 10% of the entire budget for the year for the whole town budget will go to this firm.

So, the special session was not called in a public hearing. Then the special session made decisions which lead to 5% to 10% of the annual budget being allocated in a particular way, funds that would not have been allocated without the executive session, funds with no direct relationship to pending litigation.

Here is the provision that allows for an executive session relevant to this case:

d. discussions regarding proposed, pending or current litigation;

They can have an executive session to discuss a lawsuit. The reason is valid. The way the session was called may not be. The subsequent payments made to WOH may or may not be according to the law.

Given that Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna is NOT the firm handling the federal lawsuit, though, that portion of the executive session, at least the decision to pay that firm, would certainly have had to have a public component to be legal. At least it seems pretty clear that the hiring was illegal given the language in the public officer's law.

Can they make decisions about planning and zoning attorneys without consulting the planning and zoning boards? Perhaps. Can they make budgetary decisions, or decisions involving public money, not directly related to the suit and still claim that the executive session was about current litigation? Not sure.

I'm just a humble dog farmer. Let's see what the grey beards have to say over at New York Department of State. Key quote: "As such, it is clear that an executive session is not separate and distinct from an open meeting, but rather that it is a part of an open meeting."

Sounds illegal to me, this special session in March. If the session was illegal, David Everett has no standing to represent himself as the attorney for the ZBA or planning boards. Or does he? How could he? He can't really be legally paid for this work, can he?  Could his correspondence still be confidential? Maybe Mr. Everett has no more standing to issue confidential letters than any member of the general public.

Anyway, please let me know if anyone knows of any laws that outweigh the public service law in terms of the conduct of meetings, open and executive. Or maybe there was a public meeting on Sunday or Monday on the dates in question and I'm not aware of it, or minutes are published somewhere other than the town website....

Speaking of minutes...

Now, what about the minutes for the executive session? Here is the law:

2. Minutes shall be taken at executive sessions of any action that is taken by formal vote which shall consist of a record or summary of the final determination of such action, and the date and vote thereon; provided, however, that such summary need not include any matter which is not required to be made public by the freedom of information law as added by article six of this chapter.

3. Minutes of meetings of all public bodies shall be available to the public in accordance with the provisions of the freedom of information law within two weeks from the date of such meeting except that minutes taken pursuant to subdivision two hereof shall be available to the public within one week from the date of the executive session.

Where are the minutes? If no minutes are released and available to the public, if no minutes were kept, then the session is invalid. I could FOIL the minutes but my FOILs are routinely ignored by the town.

Okay, I'll FOIL the minutes. There. FOILed.

The law says one week to make minutes public and this session occurred 3 months ago as I write this. I shouldn't have to FOIL the minutes. They should be on the town website or available to pick up at the office whenever the clerk is on duty.

Anyone out there have them?

Therefore, Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna may have been selected illegally, or the firm may have been selected legally but cannot yet be paid for its work until the town conducts an open, public vote to pay them. The executive session seems to have violated the plain language of the law in the way it was called and because it lead to an expenditure of public money not directly related to a lawsuit, as it was not paid to a firm representing the town in a lawsuit and used for intern functions of the town.

Mr. Everett presented himself to the ZBA as their attorney. Is he?

At the very least, we should see the minutes and have an official statement from the town board about whether or not they feel they hired Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna legally. We would need to see the minutes of the session and the announcement of the public hear that occurred between Saturday, March 26, 2011 after the serving of the papers regarding the federal suit and Monday, March 28, 2011 at 7PM when Mr. Everett took over from Tal Rappleyea. Everett only handle cases when I am involved. Can this arrangement in and of itself be legal? Did Tal formally recuse himself? Was that done according to Hoyle?

Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna might need to re-imburse the town for any money spent on the mistake of assuming Mr. Everett was the official attorney for the ZBA and planning boards, payments to the taxpayer with interest. Then re-do the hiring of this firm in public, at least the payment portion of their arrangement, without discussing the lawsuit in federal court, which this firm has no role in defending.


Issue two: errors

David Everett is not always right.

Error one:

I think it is a mistake to assume Everett is the attorney legally empowered to represent the ZBA. He may not have advised the town board of the proper way to conduct an executive session. In this, he may have not shown attention to relevant laws and made his first mistake in this process. If, as I suggest may be the case, without knowing for sure, the town board screwed up the executive session, isn't that Dave Everett's fault? I mean, the town board is not made up of attorneys.

At every turn, Mr. Everett has made what appear to my lay, inexperienced eyes to be errors of law. If my simple reading of the law is roughly accurate, it may be a mistake to assume that Everett's opinions, as expressed in the secret letter, are correct.

That's another reason we should have a look at the secret letter. It might be wholly or partially wrong. More apparent mistakes:

Error two:

In the letter of April 4, 2011 Mr. David R. Everett of Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna, writing on behalf of the planning board as attorney, so claimed, noted Parkview Associates v. City of New York, 71 NY 2nd 274 (1988). This citation referred to my case, Glencadia Dog Camp, but is clearly more relevant to the permit granted in 2004 and reviewed in 2008 for Main Auto repair facility. This court decision noted here deals with an application approved by a planning board that was in violation of the law. The court held that the law supersedes planning approval. The approval of the auto repair facility in 2004 and reviewed subsequently to allow for a larger sign violates town zoning law (see page 14, Town of Stuyvesant Zoning Ordinance, Adopted on May 10, 2001 As Local Law #1-01). The repair shop is in an agricultural district and is clearly forbidden by local law.

Errors three, four and five:

In the letter on May 20, 2011 municipal attorney David R. Everett of Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna wrote,

“As you know, the Town's zoning code provides that: Reasonable costs incurred by the Planning Board for private consultation fees of a planner, engineer, attorney or other extraordinary expense in connection with the review of a proposed site plan shall be charged to the applicant ....In this regard, the board may require such costs to be paid in advance, not to exceed 5% of the total project cost, and may deny application upon the failure of the applicant to make payment within 60 days of the date of the original application submission.

“As you know, the Planning Board has asked Mr. Jurkowski to review and comment on your client's noise study and provide technical advice on this matter. Mr. Jurkowski is a professional engineer licensed in New York and he is the designated Town Engineer. He also has experience with environmental noise impact issues. As required by the zoning code, the Board has requested that Mr. Pflaum post an escrow to cover Mr. Jurkowski fees in assisting the board with this matter. Mr. Jurkowski is preparing an estimate of the initial escrow amount.”

Here are the problems with these statements; 1) town policy and planning board procedures require that payments and escrow be set up in advance and not submitted at the end of the process due to problems and ethical violations in the past; 2) the cost of the project is zero therefor the entity before the board, me, does not have to pay squat; 3) Mr. Jurkowski is the engineer on the town garage project that I am leading the resistance to, a direct affect on his bottom line, and therefore should be excluded as a candidate due to conflict of interest.

Mr. Everett is clearly aware of the conflict of interest, as indicated by his letters referring to this blog, and yet continued to promote his opinion as vital. He failed to look for an unbiased opinion from an engineer not directly affected by my opposition to this town project.

I call that an error. I count five errors to date and we have one letter left.

Error six:

Mr. Everett's letter of June 3, 2011 repeats the error of the May 20th letter:

"As a result, under the Town's law, Mr. Pflaum will be responsible for paying the Board's engineering fees on this application up to May 23rd,the date when he withdrew his application. Mr. Jurkowski is preparing a final invoice for services rendered to the Board. Upon receipt of that invoice, I will forward it to you for payment by your client. It is my understanding from Mr. Jurkowski that his fees will be approximately $1,000 for this matter."

Sending this invoice could constitute an ethical violation, in contradiction to planning board policy and state law.

In conclusion, given Mr. Everett's track record of legal error (or so I say and I am not a lawyer and could be wrong) and possible lack of standing as attorney  (or so I say and I am not a lawyer and could be wrong), the secret letter should be released publicly, the town board should release the minutes of the executive session, the town should publicly hire the firm in order to be able to legally pay WOH, and the firm might need to return all payments made to date to the taxpayer, with interest.  (or so I say and I am not a lawyer)

Anyway, I would like to hear any opinions about why I might be wrong about any of this. Seems like the town didn't follow the rules and its Everett's fault. I am not a lawyer and I have no experience. Please consider all of these issues as questions. I am asking questions and I honestly would like responses.

How many times did I say I'm not a lawyer?

Again, I'm asking questions as a humble dog farmer with no experience in these matters. I have concerns and questions but no definitive answers and would welcome outside, unbiased expertise and opinion, from anyone really. Thanks for considering responding, lawyers.

I'm not a lawyer.


Issue three: jobs

In the past, town officials (Tal Rappleyea, Tom Shanahan, Valerie Bertram, Gerry Ennis, Howard Gleason) have promoted the theory that my business violates zoning by having too many employees. Zoning only allows two employees. They think I have had more. Scandalous! Hiring people! Arrest that man! Call in the $450 an hour hired gun to get him to stop this terrible crime! Too many jobs!

I do not think they have a clue what they are talking about, for the record. It's not really their business, is it? And I can have as many contractors as I want, can't I?

It seems to be possible the the secret letter may attempt to resurrect this charge of illegally creating too many jobs and violating town law by paying too much in taxes. This old charges is the standard back up charge in case the dog barking thing doesn't pan out. They had some other back up charges, and who knows what's in the secret letter, but this TOO MANY JOBS meme is a old solid Stuyvesant line of reasoning.

David Everett gets $450 an hour. People working at Glencadia might get $15, $20, $25, $30 an hour, more or less. When I post an ad for a job at $20 per hour, I get 300 responses. I stopped posting ads because it's too difficult to deal with the onslaught. What are the 299 people I didn't hire doing now? Auto detailing on Mr. Everett's BMW for $8 an hour?

Instead of paying more than $60,000 to fight a preposterous charge, I could have invested in the local economy and created at least one more job. Maybe for a guy making $450 an hour another $20 an hour job doesn't seem like a big deal.

Is that what's in the letter? A new plan to kill jobs?

There is one permanent $20 job dead already not out there somewhere because of someone else's quick in and out $450 an hour job.

But I could be wrong. I'm just a dog guy. I'm no economist. I'm not a lawyer. I work in a barn with animals. I just ask questions for free on my free blog. I'm sure David Everett has all the answers. Of course, he'll charge $450 an hour to put them in a letter with letterhead and all, and that is much more serious than a dumb blog.

No one really answers these kinds of questions do they? Not in Stuyvesant. Not in Columbia County.

Okay, I'll sit here in the barn with the dogs and goats and sheep and chickens and horses and wait for my answers.

Thanks.