Legislature may investigate government center, Valley View

By Pamela Chergotis GOSHEN — Dissatisfied with the county executive's answers about the fate of the government center and Valley View nursing home, the legislature plans to start an investigation using its subpoena power and ability to call witnesses to testify under oath.

A special meeting of the legislature will be held 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29, at the Orange County Emergency Services Building for a discussion and vote on whether to begin an investigation.

The move to investigate, announced Friday by legislative Chair Michael Pillmeier, may be unprecedented in Orange County. It's extraordinary, too, that a Republican legislature is moving against a Republican executive.

A February report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) surfaced only this month, days after legislators voted on whether to build a new government center. The report undercut county Executive Ed Diana's claim that the center was beyond saving. Many legislators and members of the public accused Diana of suppressing the report so that he could get the new center he's been pushing for since 2010.

The FEMA report said damage caused by last August's Hurricane Irene was much less than the county claimed. The vast majority of mold at the center came from 40 years' worth of neglect, it said.

Diana dismissed the report as a "draft," and said he'd planned to share the final report after further negotiating with FEMA to get more disaster funding.

For nearly two years now, Diana has pitched several designs for a new center, ranging from his first $136 million proposal to the downsized $75 million plan he presented in March.

The legislature on May 8 agreed 12-9 not to build.

The looming closure of Valley View nursing home has also eroded public trust. Diana is determined to sell the nursing home to a private owner, which has angered workers, residents, and residents' families.

Political fallout Town of Chester Supervisor Steve Neuhaus, a Republican who has announced his candidacy for county executive, applauded the Pillmeier and the legislature for the move to investigate.

"Public trust is out the window," he said. An independent, bipartisan, "blue ribbon" panel can get to the bottom of things, Neuhaus said — whether to undercover mistakes or wrongdoing, or to find that Diana was right all along. Either way, he said, an independent investigation is the only way to restore public trust.

Neuhaus noted that it's been nine months since the flooding after Hurricane Irene shut the government center, and the county is no further along in getting a functioning center. In the meantime, Goshen businesses are really suffering, he said.

"The county building is completely bogged down," he said. "An investigation is the only way we can go forward," he said. "The whole debacle is really distracting."

He said the legislature is nearly 100 percent together on this, Democrats and Republicans alike. He attributes the new bipartisan spirit to the wake-up call to Republicans got when one of their party, Legislator James Petro, lost badly to a Democrat in a "very Republican" district. His opponent, Matt Turnbull, ran on three issues, Neuhaus said: Valley View, the government center, and health care contributions. Only six members of the legislature voted to have elected county officials contribute to their health insurance before the election, he said. After the election, he said, all 21 members agreed on the contribution.

"They are worried about their survivability," he said.