by Cindy Goldstein -
The Board of Trustees (BOT) spent most of their November 12th work session discussing the Hunter Tier Project, a key agenda item. Additionally, the proposed affordable housing project to be built on the current parking lot has occupied significant time and attention from the BOT, Village staff and passionate residents both supporting and opposing the development.
The Memo
As their terms are set to end on December 2nd, Trustees Lou Young, Manny Rawlings and Leilani Yizar-Reid rushed to bind the Village to a term sheet before leaving office. During these final weeks the preferred developer – Westhab/Washingtonville Housing Alliance (Westhab/WHA) had been negotiating with Village Attorney Robert Spolzino and his team.
A strongly worded legal memo dated November 8, 2024 (see memo HERE) laid out Spolzino’s advice to terminate the negotiations. This memo may have been what finally swayed the board’s majority to pause the negotiations.
Negotiations No Longer Private
Spolzino first offers his legal opinion about whether or not negotiations with Westhab/WHA may continue in executive session. Because a majority of the BOT had already agreed to the price Westhab offered the Village for the property, Spolzino determined that the negotiations had to be held in public.
Preferences for Village Flood Victims
Spolzino goes on to address the possible consequences of granting a preference to income qualifying Village residents and former residents displaced by flooding. Two trustees attended a Zoom meeting with the NYS Homes and Community Renewal (NYSHCR) (see link HERE) where they were told that 50% of the units proposed for Hunter Tier could be assigned to flood victims as money was available from Hurricane Ida funds. While NYSHCR has indicated verbally that the money would be available, Spolzino warned that the Village could still be sued under the Federal Fair Housing Act and the risk of a lawsuit was significant.
Fiduciary Responsibility
The memo recounts that Spolzino asked all BOT members to stop any independent conversations with Westhab/WHA officials as those side conversations make it impossible for the VOM negotiating team to do their job properly. Evidently not every member of the BOT took this advice and two Trustees – Young and Rawlings – were named as being in touch with Westhab/WHA. Spolzino went on to say that it is possible that these side conversations could be a violation of the fiduciary duty of BOT members.
Defense and Indemnification
While Westhab/WHA generally agreed about the preferences for flood victims, they would not include a right for the Village to terminate the contract if a legal challenge to the preference program moves ahead. Instead, an email from the Westhab/WHA attorney Michael Curti offered to defend and indemnify the Village in any lawsuit. See email HERE. The language is broad and would cover attorney’s fees, damages, judgment and liabilities from a legal challenge based on the preferences. It is interesting to note that only Washingtonville Housing Alliance (WHA) is listed as the entity that would indemnify the Village.
Editor’s Note: Westhab and WHA are separate legal entities, and they describe themselves as “strategic partners.” WHA is a significantly smaller entity than Westhab so that the indemnification might be limited by the overall assets of that organization. According to Guidestar, recent tax returns show Westhab’s total assets are $322,845,331 (2022 tax year). WHA has assets of $1,626,078 (2023 tax year). It seems clear from the proposed language that the larger entity – Westhab – would not indemnify the Village. And due to the short time between Spolzino’s conversations with the two trustees and the offer of indemnification, the question remains whether or not the Washingtonville Alliance Board of Directors approved the indemnification language.
Timing Raises Suspicions
In his email, Spolzino stated that the offer of defense and indemnification was received within 12 hours of his initial conversation and 30 minutes of the second conversation. This convinced him that one or both of the two trustees, who had been warned not to engage in direct negotiations with Westhab, continued to do so.
Spolzino wraps up the memo with “But the fact that such communications continue to be made makes it impossible for me or any attorney to communicate in a privileged and confidential way with the Board of Trustees. Such communication is essential to negotiate effectively with Westhab. I recommend, therefore, that negotiations with Westhab be terminated.”
Young Won’t Take No for an Answer
As Spolzino made his legal opinion crystal clear, Trustee Lou Young was in contact with Michael Sussman, whom he called “the best attorney in America”.
Sussman has had a long and successful career as a civil rights attorney. One of his cases involved a lawsuit on behalf of individuals challenging the constitutionality of the repeal of the NYS religious exemption for vaccinations. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the hearing in Albany. See Article HERE.
There is no evidence that Sussman has any experience in municipal law, contract negotiations or real estate law.
In 2002 Sussman ran afoul of the strict legal requirements regarding the commingling of client funds with an attorney’s personal funds. His law license was suspended for one year according to newspaper reports (see HERE) although the NYS Unified court System reports his suspension was to be for almost 3 years (6/10/02 – 2/23/05). See HERE. Sussman never used the client money for his own purposes, but the fact remains that over five years approximately 40 client checks (often judgments in civil cases) were mishandled. Attorneys must segregate clients funds and keep careful track of them in an escrow account held on behalf of their clients.
In addition to the NYS suspension Sussman’s Massachusetts law license had been administratively suspended in 1995 and then again in 2002. See HERE.
An in-depth article (see Article HERE) when Sussman was a Green Party candidate for NYS Attorney General in 2018 mentions Lou Young as his communications director. Campaign Finance Reports filed with the NYS Board of Elections show that Young was paid more than $15,000 for his work on Sussman’s campaign. See Finance Report HERE. Sussman lost that election.
Editor’s Note: Lou Young was not a Village Trustee, nor did he live in the Village of Mamaroneck at the time.
Young stated that Sussman told him he could wrap up the negotiations in the next week and that it was remarkable to have gotten him on the phone. Young did not mention the prior employment relationship at the meeting.
After lengthy back and forth discussions, the BOT voted to pause the negotiations with Westhab until the new Board is sworn in. See Article HERE. The three new Trustees take office at noon on December 2nd.
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