As S. Shyam Sundar put it in this The New Republic article of 2016:
“We can’t distinguish between real news and fake news because we don’t even question the credibility of the source of news … Why would we, when we think of ourselves or our friends as the source?”
This article was inspired by what we read in the January 13, 2022, issue of the Ravena News Herald, a local rag run by Capital Region Interactive Media, and a McHugh associate, Mark Vinciguerra. The RNH was formerly owned by McHugh, bought after previous owner/publisher Dick Bleezarde died, and in which McHugh continues to hold an interest. In fact, McHugh’s law offices occupy the Ravena building on at 164 Main Street in Ravena, the former location of the Ravena News Herald. McHugh uses that address as his primary address on his license and elsewhere. McHugh actually lives; that is, his primary residence address is really at 100 Lawson Lake Road, a Feura Bush address (12067) but on the Town of Coeymans assessment rolls.
We’ve frequently taken issue with the reports printed in the McHugh Public Relations Manual calling itself the Ravena News Herald, and have written about misreporting, incorrect facts, partisanship, partiality, and outright favoritism when it comes to reporting about McHugh or any of his friends or clients (Readers might want to visit our article “George McHugh: Conspiracy, Misrepresentation, Possible Fraud?”, or any of our articles relating to the 2019 elections and McHugh). The front-page stories in the January 13, 2022, issue of the Ravena News Herald did nothing to improve our opinion of the News Herald as a dirty tampon.
Case in point: Not a word was printed in the Ravena News Herald about the September 8, 2021, two-car accident that occurred on Route 9W, in front of Pickers Nation (2530 US Route 9W, Ravena), that involved Coeymans Town Supervisor George McHugh and local Ravena resident, Laszlo Polyak, and which also destroyed the sign at the Capital Care Family Practice medical facility, at 2524 US Route 9W. Wouldn’t that be news? After all it involved the Town Supervisor, was investigated by the Coeymans Police Department, and caused significant damage to a local business? A month later, almost to the day, Rosemary McHugh, 4th wife of Town Supervisor George McHugh, t-boned a vehicle operated by a local Ravena resident, Kayleen Cique, in the Ravena Stewarts Shop parking lot. (See our article, “Rosemary McHugh: Driving While Disabled?”.) Again, not a word in the Ravena rag. Do you think there may be some favoritism or influence at work here?
We then have the report, again a front-page article, about the untimely resignation of a newly elected town official, Laura J. Barry, who was elected to be Town Clerk. The article does nothing but obscure the facts behind the resignation but it does contain hundreds of sugar-coated words reinforcing the incest club calling Coeymans Town Hall its home. Disgusting.
A second front-page article discusses the “revitalization of a long-vacant Main Street building” in Ravena.[5] Well, the misinformation starts with the title because the building in question was not a “long-vacant building”! The building is occupied by Mr. Laszlo Polyak who has been living there for 30 years! Polyak also rents three apartments on the second floor, which have been occupied for at least 10 years! That hardly qualifies as long-vacant building!
You say Tomehto We Say Tomahto; They Say Gay-bler, We Say Gobbler.
Yep! Just what we needed in Ravena-Coeymans: Another Land-Gobbler. It’s as if the Michael Biscones and the George McHughs, and their insider friends Carver Laraway, Albert Collins, and Robert Nolan weren’t grabbing everything in sight, we now have a new kid on the block who will gobble up properties or whatever’s left over and worth having. They may pronounce it ‘Gaybler’ Realty but in the tradition of a Josephine Bruno, they’re still gobblers, no matter how you spell it or pronounce it.
Coincidentally, the owner of the building, Mr. Laszlo Polyak, is the second party in the George McHugh accident, and Polyak’s tenant Kayleen Cique, rents and lives in one of the apartments in the “long-vacant Main Street building” – long-vacant according the News Herald’s and Lekocevic’s definition of ‘vacant’ – that’s the same Kayleen Cinque, whose car was T-boned by Rosemary McHugh. Interestingly, we have unconfirmed information that Rosemary McHugh made a deal with K. Cinque to go 50-50 on the repairs needed by Cinque. Now isn’t that interesting? No ticket and no insurance company involvement in that accident, even though the Albany County Sheriff’s deputy S. Hotaling investigated the accident and filed the Police Accident Report.
Nowhere, absolutely nowhere in the article is Mr. Polyak mentioned, nor is the fact that the “long-vacant” — though occupied for 30 years — building also contains three occupied apartments! Nowhere in the article does Lekocevic mention that Polyak spearheaded the renovation of the entire building on the corner of Main Street and Central Avenue. Nor does Lekocevic mention the actual “long-vacant” buildings along Main Street like the old Bushes Hardware, the former offices of the Ledger newspaper — both the Ledger and Bushes have been gone for more than 10 years but their signs are still there —, and the eyesore just across the street from the Gabler Real Estate offices, a large corner building that has had an “Auction” notice posted on it for several years now! Looks like the News Herald’s Executive Editor, Ms Melanie Lekocevic, has a big problem with the facts, but manages to get everyone else’s name in the article from Ravena bar-owner Mayor Misuraca to village untrustworthy trustee Nancy Warren to Delmar realtor Joy Iafallo, none of whom had anything to do with the improvements made to Polyak’s property! Even stupider is the fact that Mayor Moose-Moron Misuraca states in the article that the “building where Gabler Realty opened has been vacant for many years.” Misuraca is mayor of Ravena, has his mayoral offices just blocks away, and his bar is just down the street on Main Street, yet he is unaware that the building has been occupied continuously for more than 30 years! Can he be that stupid? (Answer: Yes!)
Well, Ravena doesn’t have to deal with Misuraca any longer; he lost his bid for nomination by the Republican party and will not be on the ballot for the March village elections.
What we find incredible is that Gabler Realty and its principals, Judi Gabler and Joy Iafallo, knowing full well that the News Herald story was a load of crapola, didn’t get an immediate conspicuous correction of the fake facts in the article. Iafallo is also president of the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Community Business Association, so you’d think that she’d be interested in getting true facts out there. But wait a minute, doesn’t the fake news about the property make Iafallo, Gabler, and Gabler Realty look real good? Even better since the article, although full of misinformation, does paint Gabler as being the hero-savior of yet another derelict building in Ravena? When you actually think about it, the lies do make Gabler Realty look good, so why should they want a correction? Realtors are not really noted for any interest in truth-telling, are they?
Another instance of the Ravena News Herald keeping silent on the antics of Ravena elites occurred in 2021, when Robert Nolan of Nolan Propane (Ravena, NY) and a McHugh appointee to the Town of Coeymans Planning Board/Zoning Board of Appeals, and Ravena shyster Michael Biscone attempted to bully the neighboring Town of New Baltimore into denying a local business project competing with Nolan. The RNH neither reported on the conspiracy nor did it mention that Coeymans Town Supervisor McHugh was representing the Town of New Baltimore against one of his own board members and a business in the town to which McHugh was elected to be Supervisor! (See our article, “Nolan, Biscone, Miller vs. Albright & Sons: News Herald a Day Late and a Dollar Short”.)
Editor’s Note: We could agree that Judi Gabler is a graduate of the RCS school system when she is quoted as saying, not once, but twice, ”As an alumni of RCS…” The correct term would be alumna, if the speaker is a woman; “alumni” is the plural men or mixed men and women. We can almost forgive such ignorance in a realtor but not in a journalist! But then, we’re talking about the Ravena News Herald, aren’t we? But then, we do live in a gender-identity confused culture, so maybe Gabler’s apparent error is actually a true statement of who she is.
It seems that the author of all three front-page articles in the January 13, 2022, issue of the Ravena News Herald, Ms Melanie Lekocevic, who gets a billing in the News Herald as “Executive Editor,” really needs a refresher in journalism and reporting, particularly as regards getting real facts and checking those facts! Shame, AGAIN, on you, Ravena News Herald!
Here’s a good idea for a front-page story, Ms Lekocevic: Why is it that Coeymans applies for grants (and is rejected) and Coeymans organizations can get money to repair an old chimney (We’re referring to Lekocevic’s front-page story, “Historic Alcove Chimney: Restoring a local landmark.” (RNH, January 13, 2022)) but can’t find money to revitalize or restore the water mains in the Village and Hamlet so that the Fire Departments can get water to extinguish fires?!? Does Supervisor George McHugh or Mayor William Misuraca or Trustee Nancy Warner have an answer to this question? How about Gabler Realty? Is Judi Gabler or Joy Iafallo or any of the claimed 20 Gabler employees going to disclose to potential buyers that the Village and Town can’t provide a reliable source of water? Are they going to tell their “match[ed] property buyers” how that might affect their property insurance? Or is all that going to be swept under the carpet like so many other things in Ravena and Coeymans?
By the way, as of this date and after an exhaustive search, we cannot find a single word about the two McHugh accidents nor about the Notice of Claim and possible lawsuit against the News Herald’s little friend, Georgie McHugh, or his protégés Keyer, Baker, Collins, Bruno, LeFevre, Seney, or Arnold. The Town is on the brink of a huge legal controversy and the Supervisor and Police Chief are about to be investigated, if they’re not already under investigation, and Coeymans is kept in the dark all this time. Why is that Mark Vinciguerra, Melanie Lekocevic? Aren’t you selling a newspaper, and aren’t Coeymans residents purchasing the Ravena News Herald to get their news?
Of course, residents in the Town of Coeymans are certainly aware that the Coeymans Town Board annually designates the Ravena News Herald to be the Town’s official newspaper, the place where you’ll find all the news McHugh and his mob want you to know about in your lovely Town of Coeymans.[6] If it seems that incest is best in Ravena-Coeymans, it’s because it is part of the culture; everyone has his or her hands in the other’s pockets or panties.
Notes:
[1] Coeymans: Poster-Child of the “Sick Community Syndrome.” Part I
Coeymans: Poster-Child of the “Sick Community Syndrome.” Part II
Coeymans: Poster-Child of the “Sick Community Syndrome.” Part III
Coeymans: Poster-Child of the “Sick Community Syndrome.” Part IV
Coeymans: Poster-Child of the “Sick Community Syndrome.” Part V
[2] McHugh and his Town Board take good care of themselves. On January 29, 2021, the Coeymans Town Board gave notice of a Resolution Authorizing the Transfer of Certain Lands Owned by the Town of Coeymans to Albert F. Collins Jr. and Lori Collins, in which two parcels of land were to be transferred to the Collins for $66,300.00, which “represents the amount owed by the Town to Collins & Son, Inc. under a contract for prior cleanup work performed on the property.” That must have been on hell of a cleanup job! How many Coeymans residents knew about this and was it published conspicuously or even reported in the Ravena News Herald? (See our article, “Coeymans: Send McHugh and His Nuggets Down The Tube.”)
[3] The County Legislator’s seat was left vacant in 2021, when George Langdon, representing the Town of Coeymans and previously a sitting member of the Town of Coeymans Town Board, a member of George McHugh’s so-called Comeback Team, was forced to resign in disgrace from the Albany County Legislature. McHugh moved quickly to tap another of his Comeback Team, rookie Town Board member Zachary Collins, son of McHugh appointee to the Planning Board/Zoning Board of Appeals, to run for Langdon’s vacant seat, even though Collins had not completed even half of his 4-year term on the Town Board to which he was elected in 2019! That’s exactly what the Albany County Legislature needs: corrupt inexperienced puppets elected by sheeple.
[4] Chief of Police Douglas Keyer himself is in the hot-seat as we write, since he is named in the pending Claims as having abused his office as Chief of Police, as having knowingly engaged in clear conflict of interest, as having obstructed or impaired a police investigation, and as having conspired with George McHugh to influence the process and outcome of a police accident investigation, among other charges.
[5] “Gabler Realty revitalizes long-vacant Main St. building,” RNH, January 13, 2022, p. 1.
[6] Re: New York Town Law. The promulgation of notice provisions in the Town Law frequently deters effective publicity. Although the Town Law does not suffer from the politically oriented designation procedure of the County Law, its provisions often cause confusion and injustice, however. Unlike counties, towns need not designate an official newspaper but have the option to do so. Being an “official newspaper” does not mean that everything pertaining the events in a municipality must appear in the newspaper but legal notices, notices of hearings, various administrative and legislative actions are examples of what should be published in a municipality’s designated “official newspaper.”
Albany NY a.k.a. Smalbany 