One of Orangetown's Greatest Sentinels Is Retiring - Denis Troy

In keeping with all my Patch Articles. I am offering, not a scholarly or academic or legal or historic or political treatise, just a personal conversational essay based on what I witnessed Denis Troy did that was so extraordinary and visionary and had such an incredibly positive impact for the right goals.

I start with his leading the Town Government to purchase 448 acres of the New York State Rockland Psychiatric Center property declared surplus so the Town could guard such a huge parcel from use by forces that could care less about our Home and that could change Orangetown's DNA forever. Some of the offers were definitely destructive, such as one offer to build 5,000 houses on the property. This would have a major problem for the local school district.

In keeping with his vision of a future where families could raise children in the best community environment, Denis was a key figure in the creation of the OMM soccer complex and South Orangetown Little League complex on some of the surplus RPC land. Every time I drive past and see all those youngsters enjoying all different sports, I say a prayer of thanks for everyone who made it possible. The ideal fields are a town treasure and a fantastic gift for our youngsters.

No one on the Town Board in the 60 years I have been around ever did more for the children [and their families] than Denis.

To add to the brilliance of Denis' prophetic vision, some of the surplus property is now owned and operated by the private Gaelic Athletic Association [GAA], which built the largest Irish sports center in America. What does that mean ? It means that the many youngsters who prefer to play traditional Irish sports have a place to do so without interfering with the Town's open sports fields as well as being available for adult sports. To add to the wonder of the facility, it is used for many other purposes such as a venue for our local charities for fundraisers. As an example, O&R hosted a very successful fundraiser for the Rockland Homes for Heroes Charity that builds and operates permanent affordable supportive apartments for homeless veterans.

Moreover the NYC FC purchased some of the surplus property to build the Etihad City Football Academy and training facility. It's a world class training facility.

But there is more to the fruits of Denis' vision. Denis has undeniable amazing people skills and someone who sees the "Big Picture", which enabled Denis to facilitate a compromise with O&R vis a vis a power substation that enabled Orangetown becoming a home to two major Data Centers for Bloomberg and Chase [which by the way is on the surplus RPC property I was talking about. Think "Clean Industry" that means more taxes and good jobs.

I could go on forever about his integrity, his values and his diligence, his sense of fiscal prudence, etc., but I prefer to share a side of him that he prefers to hide. Besides being involved with the Rockland Psychiatric Center since the 60's, I was also involved with the world of our intellectually and developmently disabled. One of my unsalaried jobs was to find community residences for residents in one of the largest State institutions that was home to many of our disabled brothers and sisters. It was Letchworth in the two towns of Haverstraw and Stony Point. It took years to convince the county residents who feared having a special-needs community residence near them for many reasons that it would enrich our community not damage it.

Most local elected officials sided with the "feared". From the day Denis was sworn in as a County Legislator for 4 years before becoming a Town Councilman, Denis stood tall, unshaken and proud beside me and faced the "feared" by siding with enlightened justice and humanitarianism. After the tide of fear went out to sea, Denis became a major force and fundraiser for those folks served by Camp Venture.

As a person involved in both politics/government and our handicapped for more than an entire half Century, no one has earned my admiration, gratitude more than Denis, who for his entire 24 years proved to be what an elected government representative should be like - honest, un-selfserving, compassionate and almost to a fault - candid, never willing to be misleading for any reason or person. A genuine Gentleman.