August　18, 2011 Preserve Ramapo frequently submits Freedom of Information Act (FOIL) requests for public documents in order to check the reality against politicians’ public rhetoric. Recently, Supervisor St. Lawrence and his assistant Phil Tisi have been claiming that the profits at the Boulder’s baseball games will cover the costs for the numerous multi-million-dollar loans and will even generate a profit for the town. That’s the rhetoric, and you’ll hear the same talking points repeated by these individuals on local radio and in stories in the newspapers. We submitted several FOIL requests to vet these claims, and, not surprisingly, there is a wide disconnect between the claims and the cash accounts.

The town doesn’t make very much at the games because the revenue sharing arrangement with the team owner, Bottom 9 Baseball, gives $1 per ticket and $2 for each car parked back to the town. These are the basic revenue streams, so we submitted a FOIL requesting "copies of all records, accountings, notes, and emails relating to ticket sales and parking revenues at the Provident Baseball Park since the commencement of the 2011 baseball season on May 26, 2011." We were pretty sure, judging from photographic evidence, that the numbers being reported for attendance were often inflated—sometimes ridiculously so. Also, attendance numbers are useless unless they are divided into who paid and who was given free tickets. The accounting of the actual money receipts would provide the real picture. We sent the same request to the Ramapo Town Clerk and to the Ramapo Local Development Corporation (St. Lawrence’s company that built the ballpark with tax money). We have learned in dealing with the Town and the RLDC that sometimes the records are at Town and sometimes they’re at the LDC. We covered both bases.

The Town Clerk’s Office said the town didn’t have those records, so we expected to get the answers from the LDC. The response we got back from the Executive Director of the Ramapo Local Development Corporation, lawyer Aaron Troodler, was brief: "Please be advised that no such records exist at this time and therefore, such records are not in the custody, control or possession of the Ramapo Local Development Corporation."

Did this mean that St. Lawrence was running what he says is a multi-million dollar enterprise without books?

Fortunately, there was another way to get to the records. The contract between St. Lawrence’s Local Development Corp and Bottom 9 Baseball has a clause that requires both sides to keep a set of financial records: "6.4 Audit. B9B (Bottom 9 Baseball) shall maintain books and records with respect to all receipts and expenditures relating to the sale of tickets, food and beverage, parking revenues, merchandise sales, broadcast rights, naming rights revenue and licensing of suites at the Ballpark as provided in this Agreement consistent with generally accepted accounting principles. RLDC shall maintain books and records with respect to all receipts and expenditures relating to its rights and responsibilities hereunder. The parties agree that their respective books and records shall be open for inspection by the other party at any mutually agreed time."

Preserve Ramapo couldn’t FOIL Bottom 9 because it’s a private company, but all records of the RLDC are public records that can be demanded under the Freedom of Information Act. So, the organization cited this clause and asked for copies of the "books and records" that the contract says the LDC must keep and make available to the partners at Bottom 9.

The response was: "I am in receipt of your Freedom of Information request dated June 28, 2011 which you submitted to the Ramapo Local Development Corporation.

In response to your request for 'books and records with respect to all receipts and expenditures relating to its rights and responsibilities' pursuant to Article 6.4 of the lease agreement between the Ramapo Local Development Corporation and Bottom 9 Baseball, LLC, please be advised that no such record exists at this time.
Best,
Aaron Troodler (Executive Director of RLDC)"

A Rogue or Clueless Corp?
There seems to be only one of two possible conclusions here. One, St. Lawrence and his LDC board are playing with, he claims, millions in revenues without keeping any legal records, even those demanded by the contractual agreement between his LDC and Bottom 9. Two, the Supervisor is waiting until the end of the year when he will accept from Bottom 9 their books and accountings and will take them at face value regarding what the team owes the town.

Offhand, you can probably think of a number of enterprises that don’t keep books. You see them in the movies all the time. And you’re probably also very aware of corporations, some recent, very large corporations that actually kept two sets of books until the government caught on.

A phone call to Christopher J. Ellis, the Chief Examiner of the Office of the State Comptroller, didn’t provide a lot of clarification. When we asked about the legality of this situation, Mr. Ellis was nonplussed, expressing the same frustration that we have concerning many of the activities of this semiprivate, quasi-governmental development company that St. Lawrence heads up and funds with Ramapo tax money. Mr. Ellis, incidentally, is in the final stages of editing this year’s audit of the Town of Ramapo, and the results are due in August or Sept.

If the LDC has decided to just trust Bottom 9’s numbers, that puts the taxpayers at risk for all kinds of problems ranging from poor to purposefully inaccurate reporting. But there are no real surprises here. The taxpayers have been hit with just about everything from this venture, right down to fines from the Department of Environmental Conservation that should have been paid by the contractors. The cost overruns for construction are still being added up and billed to the taxpayer. Today, at a special meeting of the Ramapo Town Board at 11 am this morning, St. Lawrence and his board were still writing checks for cost overruns to Turco, Morano and Holt for work at the ballpark. Today is Thursday, Aug. 18, and the baseball season is almost over, but the overruns keep coming.

Meanwhile, St. Lawrence, and Tisi, and Daniel Friedman continue to effervesce about the encouraging fiscal outlook for the ballpark.

For an example of how strange this situation can be, consider the Journal News article titled "Boulders: Rock-solid or millstone?" JN July 28, 2011. In that piece, St. Lawrence stated, as fact, "The big picture is we are going to bring in more than $1 million for baseball alone," . . . adding, he's shooting for $2 million down the road with other non-Boulders events."

How would he know what the park would earn without real data on fundamental revenues like ticket sales and parking revenues?

In the same story, the Executive Director of the RLDC, Aaron Troodler, told the reporter, "We'll know at the end of the season how much revenues have been generated. We don't get incremental payments and it would be misleading to offer an assessment at this point without the complete picture."

So the lawyer who has legally certified to the public that there are no records of key income numbers says, "It would be misleading to offer an assessment at this point." Then, the Supervisor says, "The big picture is we are going to bring in more than $1million for baseball alone." What’s this, dueling versions of the facts from two individuals who could not get any closer to the operations of the enterprise? Hmm, misleading is a pretty strong accusation.

The public has a part to play in this game. The very next time you hear Mr. St. Lawrence, or Daniel Friedman, or Phil Tisi, making economic projections for the ballpark and the team, whether it’s on the radio, at a meeting, in the paper, or just in conversation, ask them from where are they pulling the numbers they are throwing around. According to the Town Clerk and the Executive Director of the LDC, there are no numbers. If they’re playing games and have been, say, emailed the numbers from Bottom 9, then they are committing a felony under the New York State law governing Freedom of Information requests. If those numbers are in Tisi’s, Friedman’s or St. Lawrence’s hands, someone will soon need counsel—not comfort, professional counsel.

So if you hear it on the radio, call up and ask, "Where’s the cash, Casey?" And we would appreciate a follow up, in the unlikely event that Mr. St. Lawrence runs out of breath and there’s a chance for a second question. Ask, "Why are you violating the terms of the contract with Bottom 9 by refusing to keep the required set of books about ballpark revenues? Is there something to hide?"

Michael Castelluccio

Preserve Ramapo

www.PreserveRamapo.org

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