I won in state court

I've been meaning to blog about this case in Half Moon and about the hypocracy (like hypocrisy but as a form of government, like autocracy) of this charge when the County Attorney's office is stealing way more and the DA know ALL about it and does nothing, same with the state police and comptroller. 

But before I could write about that, I won in state court. To review, I paid a kickback to the Stuyvesant Town Attorney Tal Rappleyea of $437.50 in June 2010 and got a permit to run a business. The Zoning Officer Gerald Gerry Ennis showed up wanting his grease too, which I refused to supply. So, the zoning officer revoked my permit.





The town spent $250,000 on lawyers and came up with a resolution that I should move and sell my house due to an anonymous complaint that wasn't remotely true. As this is preposterous, I won in State Court and I got my permit back. The court said that the town had to rule on whether or not the ticket that Gerry Ennis issued was true or not true, not on whether or not I have to sell my house.

The town, instead of letting the issue rest at that and not touching the matter again, in 2012, ruled that the original ticket was true although that claim is also preposterous as 1000 feet is too far away for a dog back to be loud anywhere in the universe. The court said, no again to Stuyvesant's highly paid, no-can-do physics lawyers. To be a noise violation, the court realized, someone has to complain and the sound has to be kind of loud, not almost impossible to hear.

David R. Everette of Whiteman, Osterman and Hannah soaked the geniuses who run Stuyvesant out of $200,000. Then William J. Better showed up and squeezed another $50,000 out of the town. Rather than tell Ron Knott supervisor to let the matter go, William Better (Bill Better, the former County Attorney, stepping down after three women in suits claimed sexual harassment and cost the taxpayers $400,000) decided to keep up the battle.

Now here is what the judge said:

The Court has read the voluminous record of the proceedings before the ZBA. Of particular note is the ZBA's failure to address any of the substantive issues raised by petitioner with respect to the sufficiency of the Notice of Violation itself.... Stunningly, not one of the procedural requirements of the zoning ordinance were followed. This, in and of itself, requires dismissal of the Notice of Violation....

....The Court has also reviewed the Notice of Violation, and finds it fatally defective... 

With respect to petitioner's charge that he has been unfairly targeted by the Town because he has been vocal in his criticism of it through his blog, there does appear to have been a disproportionate amount of time and money spent on this violation notice...  

What the records do not reveal is a real issue with dog-barking. Notably, petitioner's actual neighbors do not appear to be the ones complaining about the kennel. Nor do we know, as noted earlier, whose complaint actually spurred the violations... 

In light of the procedural and jurisdictional defects in the issuance of the Notice of Violation dated August 9, 2010 and its consideration by the ZBA, the ZBA Resolution dated October 16, 2012 must be annulled and the Notice of Violation must be dismissed.

I don't like thinking about Columbia County government, but if I have to think about this so called "government" I like to think about them losing.