County Lawmaker Calls For Summit On Rockland's Future

NEW CITY, NY — The Rockland County Legislature meets tonight, and Nancy Low-Hogan, its vice-chair, will introduce a resolution. She's calling for a Rockland Community Summit to take place in 2020.

It's an attempt to bring some mindfulness to the problem that has simmered for years and erupted in the past week. It's a problem that has to do with building out Rockland's less-developed areas and with the rapidly growing local Hasidic community.

The pressure for development is intense. Much of it is ethnic, as developers seek to build high-density housing for ultra-Orthodox Jewish families. It has included classic "blockbusting"techniques as residents in some communities have been targeted over and over by agents warning them to sell before they are outsiders on their own streets.

It has been exacerbated by corruption. For years, the county has been plagued with business owners including but not limited to landlords who have ignored building and health codes, and who have illegally converted buildings into schools and multi-family dwellings. Also, with corrupt officials who have taken bribes, looked the other way, or come up with schemes of their own.

It has been exacerbated by the experience of the parents and children in the East Ramapo school district, where an ultra-Orthodox majority on the school board cut spending for the public school kids and increased services for Hasidic private-school kids, along with actions such as selling or renting district facilities to yeshivas at below-market rates.

Many county residents have fallen into one or more categories: those opposed to over-development, those opposed to the lawbreaking, those opposed to the blockbusting, and those opposed to the actions of the East Ramapo school board.

Some have objected to what they see as preferential treatment of the ultra-Orthodox by politicians who want support from a community that tends to vote as a bloc. For example, a state grant of $1.6 million in 2014 for a 26,000 square foot kosher slaughterhouse across the street from a non-Hasidic residential neighborhood, against the local zoning code.

Some county residents have also complained about other cultural issues in the regional Hasidic community. One complaint centers on the high dependence on welfare benefits of the ultra-Orthodox.

Others have combined all of the above with anti-Semitism. That's been particularly acute on social media, but also in graffiti and political signs.

The issues came to a head last week when the local Republican party ran a video warning residents that the Hasidic community might through its bloc vote widen its control of the county during the county legislative elections this year. While the chairman of the GOP insisted it wasn't about religion, the video makers made clear their issues were cultural, as they warned about the loss of "our way of life."

Rockland has been accused of anti-Semitism before, including in a controversial video in 2015 comparing the county to Nazi Germany.

Now Low-Hogan wants to bring together resident and community representatives from throughout Rockland County in an effort to find common ground on the challenges facing local communities and to work collaboratively addressing them.

She dubbed it the “Rockland’s Future Summit.”

“It is evident from the events that have transpired in our County in the last few days and weeks, that we are on a path of extreme division,” said Low-Hogan in a press release. “We need to find a way to move us forward: from roadblocks to solutions, from rantings to communication, from fighting to peace.”

She wants to see a series of workshops led by a community development professional from outside of Rockland County.

“Representatives from all walks of Rockland life, including local residents, government officials, non-profit leaders, school and college leaders, faith leaders, business leaders and members of the local press will be invited to participate in setting the agenda, focusing on problem areas and identifying solutions for our community,” said Low-Hogan.

Funding to pay the professional facilitator would need to come from the county budget, and Low Hogan is urging the support of the County Executive and all County Legislators.

“This is an idea whose time has not only come, but is long overdue,” said Low-Hogan. “Our county is facing a clear crisis in overdevelopment and its effect on our environment and community character, as well as a rising tide of anger, hatred and anti-Semitism. Whether these two are related, in what ways, and finding solutions to fix the problems – these will be among the topics of the Summit.

“We need to work together collaboratively and collegially to mitigate the negative impacts of
development, as well as ensure that hate-mongering is not tolerated,” said Low-Hogan. “We all need to take a deep breath and ask ourselves: where do we want to go, and what do we want Rockland County to look like ten, twenty years from now. The future of our County may lie in our ability to honestly answer these questions. Success will require consideration of all viewpoints and open communication across the Towns. Rockland’s future hangs in a balance.”

SEE:

• Court Tells Controversial Ramapo Development To Start Over
  
• Illegal School Holding Classes In Stadium Funded Through Fraud
• Halting Real-Estate Solicitation In Chestnut Ridge
• New Report Shows NY Code Enforcement 'Hellscape' In The HV
• Firefighters, Officials Call for State to Intervene in Ramapo, Spring Valley Code Enforcement
• Spring Valley Building Inspector, Businessman Indicted
• Yeshivas Drop Fight Against Rockland Fire Inspections
• Rockland County Reports Progress Taking on Slumlords
• East Ramapo Parents Sue to Compel State to Act
• County Executive Throws Down the Gauntlet To Ramapo, Other Rockland Developers
• Political Signs with Anti-Semitic Undertones Appear in Rockland
• Video Compares Rockland County to Nazi Germany
• County GOP's "Storm" Video Unleashes Political Firestorm