Serving the Towns of Wawarsing, Crawford, Mamakating, Rochester and Shawangunk, and everything in between
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A jubilant crowd came out for last Sunday's Bloomingburg village swearing in ceremonies, held in Mamakating to accomodate the large crowds. A first meeting then took place in Bloomingburg Village Hall for the first time since last August on Monday night... after the locks were changed, we've been told. Photo by Chris Rowley
Bloomingburg Inches Towards
A New Age
But Does One Election Victory Now Mean A War?

BLOOMINGBURG – Amidst an atmosphere of celebration, the victorious candidates for the Rural Heritage Party were sworn into office as mayor, trustees and justice for the Village of Bloomingburg on the evening of Sunday, April 6.

The event was held at Mamakating Town Hall, due to the numbers expected... and the crowd indeed filled the hall where the new village officials were greeted with prolonged applause and cheers.

This was the culmination of a determined effort by village residents and the Rural Heritage Party to unseat the previous mayor, Mark Berentsen, and trustees who were aligned with the developer Shalom Lamm and his company, Black Creek.

The background to the election included Lamm's efforts to complete a 396 town home development on land annexed to the village from the town, as well as a new waste water treatment plant he is building as part of a developer's deal with the village, which is required by the village in an agreement with the DEC.

The town home development, originally permitted by the village planning board, has come under a cloud as suspicions have grown that it is now intended to be occupied by Satmar Hasidim from Williamsburg, in New York City. The Grand Rebbe of the Williamsburg Satmar, indeed, visited the site on Christmas Day, 2013.

The election itself had also been marked by challenges to as many as 145 new voter registrants in the village, many if not all using addresses of properties bought by the developer. Meanwhile, the developer had challenged the election petitions of the Rural Heritage Candidates for petty errors.

In the weeks before the election, FBI agents appeared in the village to investigate the addresses given by new voter registrants.

The unchallenged votes in the election went approximately 90 to 25 in favor of the Rural Heritage Party candidates. In the previous election, there had been a total of 24 votes.

In post-election legal maneuvers, the Sullivan County Board of Elections found in favor of the challenges against most of the new registrant voters. One hundred and twenty of these were subpoenaed to appear in Sullivan County Supreme Court by Justice Stephen Schick. None showed and after two days of legal back and forth, Lamm's attorney announced that the developer was withdrawing from the case. The Rural Heritage Party candidates were announced as victors.

Opening the proceedings on Sunday, Mamakating supervisor Bill Hermann, who recently won election on the Rural Heritage Party line he helped found, gave an uncompromising speech.

"This is your basic David and Goliath story; an average middleclass community, ours — let's call it 'David' — has been attacked by a couple of well-funded, vicious, greedy interlopers — let's call them 'Goliath' — who targeted our unsuspecting town and surrounding area with a hostile takeover," he said. "They have hoodwinked us, violated our laws and made a mockery of the legal system. The citizens of Mamakating and those neighbors who came to our aid have tasted a sweet victory. We may have won this important battle, but we still have a war."

After thanking several individuals for their work in boosting the Rural Heritage Party candidates to victory — in particular, Anita Hoppe, who filed many of the challenges to the new voter registrants — Herrmann returned to the attack.

"Our party and the citizens we represent are tired of corrupt local governments acting in concert with developers who use bait and switch tactics," he noted. "We are tired of local governments not holding legal, open meetings. We are tired of local governments that illegally cater to developers and ignore the residents whom they are sworn to serve. If any developer truly wants to get along with the residents of this community, he'd stop forcing them to spends tens of thousands of dollars to stop him from manipulating elections. If a developer is truly interested in the long term best interests of ALL who reside in Bloomingburg, he will stop doing construction without building permits, stop appealing court injunctions for stop work orders, and stop intimidating those who are trying to restore the rule of law in our community. If any developer truly wants to get along with the residents of this community, tomorrow morning he'll pledge that he will not appeal, in any court, the ruling of the Sullivan County Board of Elections on 145 challenges."

Each of these points was greeted by the crowd with loud and prolonged applause.

Herrman concluded by saying, "If Mr. Lamm is truly for healing this community, he will once and for all renounce the divisive and ugly tactic of asserting anti-Semitism and hatred each and every time someone challenges him factually or questions his work as a developer."

After being sworn in as mayor, Frank Gerardi limited himself to brief comments, thanking supporters and voters. He pledged that from now on, the Village of Bloomingburg would have open government, transparent and visible to all.

"We will work for you," he said. "Your best interests are going to be our best interests."

He finished with: "We're going to get out all of the corruption. Everyone will be accountable."

Calls to Shalom Lamm for comment were not returned in time for this article.



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