Judge Albert Lorenzo's Interim Decision

PUBLIC DOCUMENTS

We show below a link to Judge Albert Lorenzo’s August 10 interim decision in the Article 78 action to which readers are urged to repress effusive reactions. Rather than a definitive victory, we should see it for what it is: one round in a pointless fight by the Village that, like Tennyson’s brook, bids fair to go on forever.

It is now all too obvious that the taxpayers of Croton are being ill served by advice and actions that give the lie to Village Board claims about the legal course being followed as “the cheaper way” that will save taxpayers’ money. The inevitable question becomes, “Are we paying too much for what we get?”

At a recent Village Board meeting, Ms. Roseann Schuyler offered a comment and a simple solution of King Solomonic magnitude. If the Village Board indeed had wanted to save taxpayers’ money, she pointed out, all it had to do was merely to admit to even one of the mistakes alleged by the Article 78 action, and repeal the law.

Instead, they are litigiously engaged in “a waste of judicial and municipal resources’--to use a term of art mentioned by Judge Lorenzo--all because someone is unwilling to own up to the fact that errors were made. Following the course suggested by Ms. Schuyler would have been the forthright and businesslike solution, but even displaying that scrap of integrity now may be expecting too much of the present Village Board.

As Judge Lorenzo’s decision shows, the Village’s delaying tactics were too clever by half, and availed it nothing. The Board still must respond to the Article 78 action—and has only a rapidly dwindling 30 days to scramble and do it. One earnestly hopes that none of this accelerated effort will be billed as overtime.

See the text of the decision at the following link:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35857276/Article-78-Decision-Order-081010

EAF Assessment Form and Proposed Amendments

PUBLIC DOCUMENTS

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," is a time-honored adage. Consultants Saccardi & Schiff have had another go at Croton's discredited Local Law No. 4 of 2009. Here's a link to a copy of their new report, dated July 10, 2010.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35678562/2010-Draft-EAF-Part-3

At the meeting of August 9, 2010, the Village Board of Croton-on-Hudson signalled by a vote of three to one that they are going ahead with a rewrite of the botched law. Taxpayers will pay for it, of course. The Village's own motto: If you don't do it right the first time, do it again and again until the public becomes exhausted.