This is an UPDATED REPORT, supplemented with additional information from our continuing investigation. Please see the pink box below for the new additions!
We’ve all heard the saying, “Same sh*t, different faces,” haven’t we? Well, in the Town of New Baltimore residents get to live that saying every day. Seems only the faces change, nothing else. It’s the same “me first” and sleepy grey-haired toads on a log at the Town Board meetings. But one disturbing tradition in the Town of New Baltimore is the dysfunction of the New Baltimore Highway Department. You’d reasonably think that with the recent changes in the hierarchy at the Highway Department that perhaps the routine would change but it doesn’t.
One of the problems is that there is no leadership, and that’s causing people to leave. There’s no leadership on the Town Board and no leadership in the Highway Department. There’s plenty of arrogance, indifference, and back-scratching going on though. They’ve had their time and they’ve been given enough rope. They thought no one was looking but SURPRISE!
If you’re wondering what’s going on, you may want to check out a couple of our past articles on the Town of New Baltimore and the New Baltimore Highway Department. Apart from being a one-party, one candidate town, there are other issues. All you have to do is a search of Smalbany articles and you’ll just shake your head. You can’t make this sh*t up!
We’ve reported extensively on the New Baltimore Highway Department but here are a couple teasers for you: New Baltimore Highway Department Reacts: Installs Another Piece of Junk , The Problem with Alan VanWormer, New Baltimore Highway Department Never Disappoints.
But the one little bit of history that seems to be repeating itself under the noses of Supervisor Jeff Ruso, and his pet Nick Delisanti, is the fact that Alan VanWormer is turning out to be Denis Jordan’s Mini-Me! It’s like a fart in the elevator; it never seems to go away! It can only be expected when someone spends over 30 years of his life, many of those under Denis Jordan, that some of Jordan wouldn’t rub off. Right? There is the saying, “You lie down with dogs and you wake up with fleas.” What we’re talking about is what appears to be a replay of what we wrote about in Denis Jordan Avoids Duties to Serve Special Friends: The Case of the Disappearing Creek.
You may recall a couple of years ago, just before COVID, we reported on the damage that was done to a single family residence in the National Historic District of New Baltimore. As the result of the New Baltimore Highway Department’s more than 24 years of neglect of their duties, according to then acting Highway Superintendent Scott VanWormer, current Highway Superinitendent Alan VanWormer’s brother, who remarked that he never knew that there was a storm drain upstream of the property. Why would he? The Highway Department so neglected maintenance that the drain was found under more than 4 inches of dirt, and only when they tried to find a culvert running across New Street, that should have redirected water from the road to the drains, if it were properly maintained, which it wasn’t. Instead, the water had been running into the foundation of the residence, causing it to collapse!
Supervisor Jeff Ruso, Deputy Supervisor Nick Delisanti, then Highway Superintendent Denis Jordan, and his deputy, Scott VanWormer, visited the site, refused to enter the building, and did nothing.
The Highway Department finally made a move and found the drain and the culvert, and replaced both but after how many years of neglect and only after the damage was done to the property.
The Town of New Baltimore turned their backs on the property owners and did nothing to mitigate the damage and loss of the property. In fact, the Town refused to reduce the sewer tax, and refused to reduce the property taxes, even though the building was now uninhabitable and collapsing!!!
So, fast forward to 2022-23. A long vacant property on the corner of New Street and Washington Avenue, No. 22 Washington Ave, in the Hamlet of New Baltimore, just maybe 50 feet away from the damaged building, was purchased by one Gerard Riggs, of Greenville. Riggs proceeded to clean up the corner property and continued renovation work started by previous owners. That’s a good thing. But the bad thing is the question, what pull does Riggs have with the New Baltimore Highway Department or someone in New Baltimore Town Hall to get them to jump thru hoops like that? Walk into the Highway Department say you’ve got a problem and the Highway Department gets there quicker than the Greene County EMTs!
Because of a minimal-or-no-record-keeping policy in the New Baltimore Highway Department, Superintendent Alan VanWormer can’t say exactly when, but Riggs showed up at the Highway Department and wanted a retaining wall replaced. VanWormer promptly made a site visit, and decided the wall had to be replaced. Within weeks the existing wall — well, it wasn’t exactly a ‘wall’ but a retaining structure that was working quite well, and even escaped notice when New Street was repaved — was replaced by a ‘decorator’ concrete barrier! The problem is, no one seemed to be bothered by the original wall. It they had, wouldn’t they have taken steps to reinforce, repair, or replace it when they repaved New Street? Or when they replaced culverts just a couple of dozen feet away? You’d think. But there was no problem then or when Riggs visited VanWormer. But now VanWormer has a problem.
Late in 2022, around August or so, a neighbor noticed heavy equipment and work crews on the New Street side of 22 Washington Avenue, who appeared for several days and were apparently installing a wall of sorts. Since the owner of No. 22 was doing a lot of work there, it was no big deal that he might be installing a wall on that side of the property, replacing a wooden retaining structure.
The work continued and was almost completed, when the resident decided to take a walk and have a closer look. Well, it became immediately obvious that a portion of New Street had been carved out to accommodate the large concrete blocks used for the wall, further narrowing the already narrow, one-way street. This raised some red flags but it’s not uncommon in this area to have property owners doing their own thing so it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Riggs decided he needed some of the public street to complete his project.
But, another thing appeared to be strange: the blocks were not really straight or aligned; the work was pretty sloppy even by Greene County standards. The resident was surprised that Riggs, the owner of the No. 22 property would have allowed that to have happened.
Shortly afterwards, the resident learned that the wall was installed by the Town of New Baltimore Highway Department! Well, that explained the sloppy work but it didn’t explain why such a project was done at all!
So, the resident decided to make inquiries and served the Town with requests for information under the NYS Freedom of Information Law (F.O.I.L.), to find out what was going on. Well, Smalbany published an article a while back entitled, New Baltimore: Pick up rocks, find snakes. Part I. So guess what we found when we started moving rocks?
The F.O.I.L. law requires public offices to provide documents upon reasonable request from the public. Documents can include things like reports, memos, letters, maps, photos/images, timesheets, minutes of meetings, and many other kinds of records. Records you’d reasonably think would be normally be kept by local government offices in the course of good practices. Well, would it surprise you that you’re wrong? Well, at least in New Baltimore. You need to understand that if you keep records or write anything down or create plans or work assignments, someone might find out what you’re doing! New Baltimore wouldn’t want that, would they?
The photos above show that there have been some pretty substantial improvements to the private property itself, this means that public money was used to benefit a private interest. That sweet graveled alleyway was once a slit, now a good sized man has no problem comfortably walking thru there. The owner is also using the wall to support the gate and the makeshift cover for is fuel access. Sweet deal, isn’t it? Oh, by the way, you tell us if you think there’s no special treatment here. Just look at the water damaged property only about 50 feet away from No. 22’s nice new wall. See any measures to prevent damage to the property or to eliminate further damage?
You might also be interested in the fact that a similar wall was installed by the Highway Department on Shady Lane. Whose property is that benefitting for our tax money?
New Baltimore Town Board & HWY Dept. Clowns Dancing Around a Possible Investigation.
They control the purse strings and they can say what has to be done in the Highway Department, or what’s left of it. Rats are deserting the sinking ship. And the buck doesn’t stop there. Greene County Legislator Pat Linger has knowledge of what’s cookin’. Greene County District Attorney Joe Stanzione has been informed for years starting with Denis Jordan.
If the members of the New Baltimore Town Board were not such ball-less capons, they’d start governing instead of just sitting there waiting for Ruso’s signal for a Aye or a Nay! Just a bunch of puppets in clown suits! But they all have knowledge of what’s going on, and are just as guilty when the sh*t hits the fan!
The result of three F.O.I.L. demands served on the Town of New Baltimore requesting information on the reason for such an outlandish project, including documentation of bidding for the equipment, finances, planning, execution, total expense, what it cost New Baltimore taxpayers to complete this crazy project.
The response to a majority of the questions was, “No documents available.” If documents were produced, they were a shotgun approach, a feeble attempt at cover-up. In other cases, multiple meaningless documents like vouchers, receipts, pages out of a desk calendar were produced. Most of the answers and documents only raised more questions.
For example, Alan VanWormer wrote a response saying that the wall had to be replaced “before it caused any damage to the owners [sic] property” but several paragraphs on in that same document VanWormer writes, “the project not only eliminated FURTHER damage to the residence at 22 Washington Ave, but also secured the east [sic] side of New Street from FURTHER deteriorating…” Wait a minute! Didn’t he just say “before it caused any damage” and he’s now saying that the wall “eliminated FURTHER damage to the residence.” Which is it, Alan? (By the way, there was no damage nor threat of damage to the building, and New Street was recently repaved, so the “deterioration” of the roadside is also a fantasy of VanWormer’s.)
Here’s another one: In response to the first of three FOILs, VanWormer states, “The total hours worked to complete this project was 30 hours.” Now that was really fishy! No less than 4 men over multiple days, including heavy equipment, and only 30 hours? C’mon, Alan, stop the lying!
In response to the same question in a later FOIL, VanWormer makes the mistake of revealing that the project actually required 171 hours of labor!!! He never provided the figures for the use of heavy equipment, etc. So, only after multiple demands did the truth actually come out. But isn’t 171 hours almost SIX TIMES his original statement? How do you make a mistake like that?
The whole thing started to smell pretty foul by this time and the fact that VanWormer and the Town of New Baltimore couldn’t come up with the most basic records you’d expect any small business to keep, let alone a public agency running on taxpayer dollars. Wouldn’t you expect some accountability and transparency? Well, not in New Baltimore, friends!
On April 10, 2023, the resident decided enough was enough and sent the three FOILs and the Towns answers and production to the Town Board, telling them he was going to make a public statement and that should review the papers. The Town Clerk confirmed that she had forwarded all of the documents to the Town Board, but could not confirm that VanWormer would be available to answer questions. That was no big surprise.
On the evening of April 10, the resident appeared at New Baltimore Town Hall, where the meeting was already in progress, and a local woman was asking questions about town attorney George McHugh. I swear, if Jeff Ruso or another of his clowns asked that poor woman, “What’s your point?” one more time, I was going to make my own point. All they did or wanted to do was make the poor woman nervous, hoping she’d shut up. They’d never try that with me!
My turn came, and I began my presentation but not before Ruso reminded me that I was going over my three (3) minutes. You see, you have a voice in New Baltimore, but only for three minutes. Noting the looks on the attendees faces and noting Greene County Legislator’Pat Linger’s worried look and the shifting of the board members in their seats, I knew I had them. I was certain I had them when Supervisor Ruso offered to bring Highway Superintendent Alan VanWormer in for a meeting to discuss my concerns. I agreed and said, “Whenever you want, I’ll be there.”
The ball in now in Ruso’s court. I sent a letter by email and regular mail today confirming my acceptance of his offer to meet. I also sent a complete set of Demands and Answers/Production from the three FOILs, conveniently extracts so that Ruso and the Board can see exactly what was asked and what was produced. You have to make things real easy for that bunch.
UPDATE
A substantial section of Shady lane runs along the slope but only a small section, perhaps 50 feet at most, is affected by the New Baltimore Highway Department’s so-called retaining wall. You really have to wonder Why? they even bothered, since a substantial part of Shady Lane is along the slope but nothing seems to have been done.
Since a much greater length of Shady Lane runs along the slope and nothing seems to have been done, and the mobile home and outbuildings do not appear to be at risk, we really have to ask Why? the Highway Department felt it was necessary to install the wall, given so many other areas requiring attention.
Furthermore, why is it up to the Town of New Baltimore to take it upon themselves to spend taxpayer dollars to prevent damage to the property of persons who choose to put themselves at risk. Those people chose to live in the hollow. Did they think that water runs uphill? Maybe.
Anyone familiar with High Mount Road and the section running along the gulley would have to say that that area would be more in need of a retaining wall than anywhere else, since the slope into the gulley is so steep, that portions of the roadway were falling into the gully. The solution there was to blacktop the edge of the road along the gulley. What that’s supposed to prevent is beyond us! Pretty dumbass, if you were to ask.
Van Wormer mentions only that ‘a similar project was done on Shady Lane’ but he doesn’t go into details. We can only guesstimate that the Shady Lane wall had to cost at least as much as the New Street wall at 22 Washington Avenue, probably even more because it’s longer, and certainly had to take as many labor hours as the New Street Wall, which was at least 171 hours.
We have to assume that the Shady Lane wall was constructed under conditions similar to the New Street wall, that is, no engineering expertise, no plans, no competitive bidding for materials, no records kept of equipment and fuel, etc.
The Shady Lane retaining wall project only adds fuel to an already white hot fire under VanWormer’s abundant butt, and puts the New Baltimore Town Supervisor Jeff Ruso and his Town Board in the hot seat to explain why these projects were done the way they were done and at taxpayer expense.
As of this update, we have received no response from the New Baltimore Town Supervisor regarding the offered meeting with VanWormer to discuss these burning questions.
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