August 27, 2010 In a rare referendum vote, more than 70% of the voters rejected taxpayer guarantees for a $25 million baseball stadium for an Independent League team here in Ramapo. On the night of the vote, Supervisor St. Lawrence’s challenge was repeated as he offered a more polite phrasing for his message: I don’t give a damn what they want—they’re going to pay for it, one way or another, and I’m going to build it.

Scheduling Voter Suppression
The State law required that the date of the special election for the referendum vote be no less than 60 days nor more than 75 days from when the petition was filed. Preserve Ramapo handed in four volumes of petitions with 2,139 signatures on June 24. The Supervisor, Town Clerk Christian Sampson, and town attorney Michael Klein decided on Tuesday August 24, next to the last week in August--a time that would guarantee maximum absenteeism of those on vacation. Then they announced that there would be no absentee ballots. We are still waiting for a determination of the NY Dept. of State whether this was legal. The actual text of the State Municipal law 84-a reads: "Absentee ballots shall be provided for all special town elections for which personal registration is required."

To decrease transparency at the polling places, the group refused to allow certified poll watchers, which are allowed in any other election.

Another example of getting slippery with the statutes involved Daniel Friedman, a Ramapo Board member who stood outside the polling area at Town Hall, politicking for his new boss, Christopher St. Lawrence. A call was placed to the police and Friedman summarily abandoned his post.

Perhaps worse were reports that Christian Sampson, Town Clerk, told those who were being trained as poll workers that the election doesn’t matter, because the stadium was going to be built anyway. (We have collected several formal statements and are looking at measures for preventing this kind of lack of neutrality and public trust in official behavior.)

We also have anecdotal evidence of a poll worker feeding this same lie to a voter who then changed their mind about how to vote. This also is being looked at.

If the referendum vote was irrelevant, then why did St. Lawrence’s people plaster signs all over the town, hold all those private meetings with small groups, solicit teacher’s unions outside of Ramapo for their support, script those multiple automated phone calls in Yiddish to the same households, all the while flagging that same red herring for the newspapers, radio audiences, and anyone else not put off by the fragrance of the rhetoric?

That level of desperation is not what you would expect from someone who has already rigged the game and won the contest. The confident don’t run around in circles.

If St. Lawrence’s company, the Ramapo Local Development Corporation, had the bona fides to guarantee the loans needed to build the stadium, there wouldn’t have been a resolution to begin with. But there was, and it was crushed in the special election by the voters. If the Bottom Nine Baseball Group had any intention or ability to fund the building of this stadium, then the referendum wouldn’t have been necessary. But there’s no chance in your lifetime that this group will accept that responsibility.

What’s Next?
The money’s got to come from somewhere, and, unfortunately, Christopher St. Lawrence still has a close-lidded sideways glance focused on the Ramapo taxpayers. The Town Board will approve the bonding, he claims. (Translation: The taxpayers will pay for building this debacle, and will eat its losses for the length of its 20-year contract.

But can St. Lawrence go directly to the Town Board and ask them for $16.5 million in new loans on top of the $15.7 million that has already been borrowed for the two properties that comprise the site? (See the Town of Ramapo transaction recorded with the County on 8/6/2009.)

Four town board members and the supervisor make up the board. And not all of them are on board with this project.

Back in July, two trustees both voted against an additional $5.8 million toward clearing the site. The Journal News, on July 20^th, reported, "Councilmen Yitzchok Ullman and Patrick Withers said Monday that they were reluctant to approve a bond anticipation note until the public votes on a proposed financing plan of up to $16.5 million for construction of the 3,500-seat stadium." They wanted to see what the public mood was concerning funding the stadium. Well, it couldn’t have been louder or more clear. And the level of public anger against the Supervisor and his pet project was cranked up even more with the Supervisor repeating his claim that the people’s vote was meaningless.

Frances Hunter, another trustee, has supported the ballpark project up until now, but we are hopeful that the recent public outcry will reach her democratic sensibilities.

Daniel Friedman, another trustee, seems to have carried over his lapdog political persona from his last position, and all that can be hoped for with Friedman is that he will refrain from bloviating as he does on cue from his Supervisor whenever he votes.

That leaves Christopher St. Lawrence—also a member of the board. Is it possible that he will he be the deciding vote? You might think so, but ironically, the Supervisor cannot legally vote on a resolution that will provide funds for his Ramapo Local Development Corp.

Here’s the problem. St. Lawrence is the President of the RLDC. He is also the Chairman of the Board of the RLDC. How did this happen? Well, there are only two other officers of the RLDC—Johnny Brunson, who also happens to be a member of the Ramapo Planning Board, and Moses Gross, the husband of an employee in Christian Sampson’s Office of the Town Clerk. In the first year and a half of the RLDC, Brunson and Gross have voted 100% of the time with their Chairman/President. They even voted him into those two positions. Although, to be fair, Brunson was absent from almost all the meetings in the first year of the RLDC’s existence. So it was Moses Gross’s one vote that ensconced St. Lawrence as the absolute controlling force in this agency.

The RLDC and the Town Board are separate entities—one governmental and the other quasi-governmental—and State law requires that they operate separately. Further, the law specifically demands that the Chairman and members of the RLDC Board in no way influence legislation at the town board level. Obviously then, St. Lawrence cannot vote on a town board resolution (local law) that would give him $16.5 million for his Ramapo Local Development Corp. project. That would be ten or twenty steps beyond just "influencing legislation." If he votes, he will have broken the law and an article 78 lawsuit would invalidate his vote.

So. . .The people have tossed out the town resolution to have taxpayers guarantee the tens of millions in loans (yesterday’s vote). The Town Board either won’t fund it, and/or can’t legally vote to do this. And Bottom 9 Baseball is not likely to dig into their own pockets, so what’s left?

Historic Vote
When Preserve Ramapo began the process of filing a permissive referendum petition, there were few people who knew exactly how the process worked. In fact, few could remember there being any permissive referendums in recent Ramapo history. As best we can determine, the last special election of this kind was in the 60s when John McAlevey was supervisor. You wonder how many voters turned up a half-century ago in that referendum vote.

For the 10,145 voters who showed up Tuesday, all of you should be aware that you are writing a new chapter in Ramapo political history. You have taken control back from an administration that insists you and your votes are irrelevant. Now we need to follow through to the end of this irrational adventure.