June 24, 2010 Late this morning, Preserve Ramapo Chairman Robert Rhodes and Rockland County Legislator Joseph Meyers delivered four volumes of petitions with 2,139 signatures from those in Ramapo who want the voters to decide whether $16.5 million in new loans to build a baseball park should be cosigned by the already stressed taxpayers.

Why the Petitions?
Back on May 26, the Ramapo Town Board approved a resolution to have the Town (read "the taxpayers") guarantee $16.5 million in long-term loans for the construction of a ball park in the Pomona end of Town. The vote was 4 to 1 in favor with Itzy Ullman, to his credit, voting a fiscally conservative "No." The resolution read:

"The Town of Ramapo hereby agrees to serve as guarantor of financing to be obtained by the RLDC in an amount not to exceed sixteen million five hundred thousand dollars and an interest rate not to exceed the interest yield on the 30-year Treasury bond with a spread of 300 basis points as of the date of such financing, and, Be it further resolved that the Supervisor is hereby authorized to execute all necessary documents to effectuate the above guaranty."

It gets worse. The RLDC that will be running around borrowing this money is the Ramapo Local Development Corporation. This corporation was formed in 2008 by St. Lawrence and his Town Board to control projects like the Elm Street housing development in Spring Valley, "the development of the property at 230 Torne Valley Road in Hillburn for a possible hotel on the site," "a number of other projects that the Town of Ramapo is currently considering, in which involvement of the RLDC could be very beneficial," and, of course, Project Grand Slam, the baseball park-- scurrilously referred to by some skeptics as "Project Grand Scam." It has not escaped the notice of these skeptics that the Town Board originally named Christopher St. Lawrence to the governing board of the RLDC, and after just a few meetings, the two other appointed members on the RLDC board voted St. Lawrence as President of the RLDC.

On May 27, the Town Board posted a public notice in the Rockland County Times announcing the resolution to make us all responsible for the new debt. So on that Thursday, St. Lawrence had his Town Board plowing ahead on the site, having already violated three different environmental laws clearcutting and paving over a large section of the site without any permits, and his RLDC was gearing up to increase the taxpayers’ burden from $8 million for the land to $25 million. The executive-in-charge appeared in a two-headed role on the organization chart, perhaps violating another law that the State has to prevent this kind of absurd conflict of interest—or from the Supervisor’s point of view, a confluence of interest.

The announcement in the paper ended with these words: "This resolution is subject to permissive referendum." In plainer English, that means the public can legally demand that they get a chance to vote yes or no on this matter, if they can get enough signatures from the voters/taxpayers.

Enough signatures would be 5% of those who voted in the last governor’s election. The minimum number would be 1,305, and the time limit was 30 days once public notice was given. With just a few days more than three weeks, the scramble was on. Get a valid petition form, send out an appeal to everyone on the email, and get the materials up online.

The campaign was on by Monday morning, and the last day for mailings was a Monday just three weeks off. The response was overwhelming—2,139 voters insisting that before you reach into their pockets you’d better listen to them.

What’s Next
The petitions were delivered at 11:30 am to the Ramapo Town Clerk’s Office. A town attorney and the staff counted the sheets to verify that no pages were missing and a receipt was given for the petitions.

The Town now has the legal obligation to schedule a referendum vote during which Ramapo voters will decide whether the Town should guarantee the financing sought by the RLDC to fund the construction of the baseball park ($16.5 million).

The vote must take place no sooner than 60 days, nor later than 75 days from the filing of the petitions. In other words, it will be on a date some time between August 23, 2010 and September 7, 2010.

If the voters register a No Vote, the funding will not be guaranteed by the Town. Without the Town of Ramapo Guaranty to support the repayment of the bonds by the RLDC, the bonds will not be saleable and the financing for the project will not move forward.

Thanks to all for your great work on this--check back and watch the updates for news about the Town’s response.

Michael Castelluccio
Preserve Ramapo
www.PreserveRamapo.org 　
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