Resident gets ‘do-over’ of Empire Zone meeting

By FRITZ MAYER

MONITCELLO, NY — Eileen Weil is an energetic, diminutive person who takes great interest in the workings of government, especially any part of government that is helping facilitate the construction of a mushroom factory in the town of Mamakating, which she calls home.

Weil and her allies have been working for three years to prevent the 83-foot-high, 825,000-square-foot building from being built on Route 209, but the legal victories have been going mostly to the company that wants to build the factory, Yukiguni Maitake.

A judge has ruled in favor of Yukiguni twice so far on lawsuits brought on issues related the environment, and observers say a third lawsuit, filed on September 21, is likely to result in another company victory.

But that has not diminished Weil’s determination to prevent the company from opening. She recently started to examine Yukiguni’s status as a certified Empire Zone (EZ) project, which will lead to substantial tax breaks. She requested information through the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) from the EZ board, and she did receive copies of the Yukiguni application, but she did not receive the minutes of the meetings at which the decisions were made to certify the company as an EZ project.

Weil decided to go to a meeting of the EZ board. She could not, however, find any public notification about when the meetings were held. After several discussions with county personnel, some of whom were also not aware of when the meetings were held, she finally learned that meetings are always held on the third Thursday of every month in the planning office at the government center.

Weil went to the appropriate place on the third Thursday of September at 3:00 p.m., only to be told that the meeting had taken place at 2:00 p.m. instead.

Robert Ernst, the chairman of the EZ board, said he had asked that the meeting be switched because he is also on the board of Sullivan County Community College, and there was a conflict in the two meetings.

However, county attorney Sam Yasgur subsequently determined that there had not been adequate public notification of the meeting, so on the next Thursday, the board members met again, and repeated the actions they had taken the week before.

Weil finally got to witness an EZ board meeting, but there is still action she would like to see taken in connection with Yukiguni’s EZ status. For instance, the company’s application said that Yukiguni would have 60 employees by July 2006. Because the company has not yet even begun construction on the factory, there are no employees working at the facility. Weil said because of this, the company should be de-certified.

Mark Baez, the president of the Partnership for Economic Development and a member of the EZ board, said that’s not true. He said if a project is certified and takes no action for two years, the board would consider de-certification. But, he said, Yukiguni has actively been trying to move forward and has, in fact, been delayed in their progress by the lawsuits brought by the groups trying to stop the plant. He said that because it is not operating yet, Yukiguni is getting no EZ benefits. Moreover, the company will likely not open the plant until 2008, and because the EZ benefit period is limited to 10 years, the delay will probably end up costing the company four years of benefits.

The question remains, however, about whether the EZ board is required to behave like other county affiliated boards as far as being open to the public.

George Bucci, the EZ administrator, said that the meetings have always been open to the public, but that most of the time no one from the public bothers to attend.

Weil said she would be attending the next meeting of the EZ board. Asked if she had drawn the ire of any folks in the county for pushing the mushroom factory and EZ issues so far, Weil said with a smile, “Sure, there are at least 25 white men in the county who would like to put me in a field and throw rocks at me.”