Wednesday, November 08, 2017
Satmar neighborhood to become first all-haredi city
Town voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved Kiryas Joel's secession from Monroe, a proposal that will create the first new town in New York in 35 years and resolve conflicts over Kiryas Joel's recent expansion efforts and longstanding clout in Monroe elections.
More than 80 percent of Monroe's voters supported the formation of the Town of Palm Tree, according to complete unofficial tallies from the Orange County Board of Elections.
Both the majority political faction in Kiryas Joel and the United Monroe citizens group had urged their voters to support the separation, making the outcome of Tuesday's vote all but assured in advance. Voter approval of the separation had seemed likely since July, when Kiryas Joel officials and United Monroe leaders finalized a legal settlement that included their mutual support for a new town with 162 fewer additional acres than Kiryas Joel had originally sought.
Kiryas Joel leaders cheered the voting results Tuesday night.
"Today is truly an historic day that will usher in a new era of peace and stability for all the residents of Monroe," Village Administrator Gedalye Szegedin said in a statement. "We would like to thank all the voters in Monroe for their overwhelming support. They chose a better path forward, one of diplomacy and compromise instead of angry rhetoric and litigation."
Under the terms of the deal reached in July, United Monroe will now withdraw its court appeal challenging Kiryas Joel's annexation of 164 acres in 2015, and Kiryas Joel will cease its own court effort to annex 507 acres instead. The future Town of Palm Tree will consist of Kiryas Joel - including the land it annexed - and 56 more acres.
The added territory gives the Hasidic community room to expand. For residents of the two villages and unincorporated areas that remain in the Town of Monroe, the separation means Kiryas Joel's voting blocs will no longer control Monroe elections. The drawback is that Monroe will lose about $1.9 million a year in tax revenue and will have to raise taxes and take other steps to make up for it.
The new town won't come into existence until 2020, unless expedited by special legislation enacted in Albany after state lawmakers return in January for the 2018 session. Assemblyman James Skoufis, a Woodbury Democrat, has said he is writing a bill that would speed up the effective date for Palm Tree and secure additional state aid for Monroe-Woodbury School District to recoup some revenue it will lose. Monroe-Woodbury will lose a relatively small amount because it will cede 220 acres to Kiryas Joel School District to put all of the future Palm Tree in Kiryas Joel School District's domain.
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