Petitions questioned during town board meeting

Public comment took up much of the June 6 Woodbury Town Board meeting, as residents voiced concerns about officials’ stance on a community petition, funding for the Earl Reservoir Dam repairs and more.

Jacqueline Hernandez of Highland Mills addressed confusion regarding two petitions, each addressing the Town of Palm Tree and Village of Kiryas Joel’s request to annex Ace Farm. She said her group’s petition, from We The People of Woodbury, does not take a position on the annexation and is focused just on supporting the village of Woodbury’s request to serve as lead agency in the environmental review of the proposal.

Vernick Alvarez, also of Highland Mills, claimed the petition has garnered major support from the community, with hundreds of signatures received, and called out the town board for what he alleged was a lack of support. He also disagreed with Woodbury Town Supervisor Kathryn Luciani and Town Attorney Rory Brady that bringing up the matter was political and inappropriate for public comment at a town board meeting.

Luciani said the town and village of Woodbury were both advised by their attorneys to not discuss matters related to the Ace Farm annexation proposal while they are in the middle of litigation. Brady said there has been no update on the lead agency question and the town is not authorized to speak about it in a public setting. He also suggested Alvarez reach out to him via email with his question to allow him time to give him a better answer than he could provided on the spot at a town board meeting.

Highland Mills resident Rey Hernandez echoed Alvarez’s concerns about the Town Board’s support of the petition, claiming only one councilmember contributed their name to the cause. He asked why the others did not sign and said that they’re either in favor of the village serving as lead agency or not, there’s no gray area.

Attorney Brady debated with Hernandez over whether he could continue speaking. Hernandez argued that the Brady could not dictate what residents can say at the town board meetings.

Luciani responded to Hernandez’s accusations by saying the entire board voted for the village to take on lead agency status. She called out him for trying to allege the board hasn’t offered their support and claimed his group’s efforts were an attempt at garnering votes.

“I’m not playing your political game. So you can come up here, you can yell, you can shout all you want,” Luciani said. “This board stands solidarity in who we ask to take lead agency which is the village of Woodbury so we all agree on that 100%.”

Maria Hunter of Highland Mills questioned why residents, such as herself, who are impacted by damage to the Earl Reservoir Dam, only learned about the approved FEMA funding for repairs via local news outlets.

As reported by The Times-Herald Record, U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan announced late last month that the town of Woodbury would receive $2.6 million in FEMA funds to repair damage sustained during flooding in July 2023.

Along with her concerns about lack of information being shared about the pursuit of federal funding, Hunter said she worried the Federal government might seize the FEMA money, forcing the town to come up with the money to fix the dam on its own.

Luciani said FEMA already released the money and it is already in an account. She added that fixing the dam was a big issue during budget planning and was grateful the town was approved for funding. She thanked Ryan for helping the town secure the grant and relieving the town taxpayers of the burden of funding the project and called it a huge win for Woodbury.