City of Beacon’s Building Inspector to leave position for Town of Poughkeepsie.

The City of Beacon’s Building Inspector, Bruce Flower, is leaving Beacon for his former area of employment in the Town of Poughkeepsie, as was announced during the City Council Workshop Meeting on 1/27/2025.

There are at least two questionable incidents in Beacon that Bruce is connected to:

Community Re-Development: Bruce was responsible for recommending that an intentionally burned down boarding house be rebuilt to retain the low income apartments during an affordable housing crisis. Neighbors of the boarding house at 925 Wolcott Avenue demanded that the boarding house be rezoned to a single-family home because they didn’t like the renters. Bruce’s interpretation of the law did strip the zoning from the boarding house, which also potentially incentives arson or destruction of a property by 50% or more in order to nullify its current zoning status, should an owner or third party want to do that.
Personal Persecution: Bruce encouraged Sun River Health management to file a Misdemeanor Complaint against the chalk artist who chalked “Free Palestine” onto the back of their building on Main Street (which faces Main Street), as per the Misdemeanor Complaint that ALBB has seen.

Both of these topics are explored in this article. To gain context, this article includes a look at the history of Building Inspectors in Beacon since 2018, when Tim Dexter abruptly retired as Building Inspector in 2018.

Bruce Flower joined the City of Beacon as Building Inspector II in October 2022, leaving his job of 18 years as Deputy Building Inspector for the Town of Poughkeepsie.

Dave Buckley was Beacon’s Building Inspector when Bruce came in. Dave started as Acting Building Inspector in January 2019 when Tim Dexter retired at the end of 2018. While Dave was to be “Acting,” his temporary position as Building Inspector lasted for 2 years. After Tim Dexter retired in November 2018, Mayor Randy Casale’s appointee, George Kolb Jr., ended up declining the job in January 2019 after accepting it in November 2018. That contributed to Dave Buckley being in his position 2 years longer as Acting Building Inspector.

One of the issues Tim Dexter was most known for in Beacon was his handling of proposed legalization of AirBnB apartments. He stuck to his interpretation of zoning requirements to require an egress window or sprinkler system be in residential units that were to be officially recognized as permitted AirBnB units in Beacon. These fire-safety installations can be an expensive fire-safety investment for homeowners who are trying to offer short term rentals for additional income. This was widely pushed back on by Beacon homeowners seeking legal recognition of their AirBnB short-term rentals.

The egress window or sprinkler system requirement was later reversed by the next Acting Building Inspector, Dave Buckley, who had been the Deputy Building Inspector at the time. As Acting Building Inspector, Dave interpreted the law differently, saying that short-term rentals could be designated an “accessory use,” which would not require homeowners to have egress windows or sprinkler systems in order to acquire their short-term rental permit.

In 2022, Mayor Lee and City Administrator Chris White tried to bring Tim Dexter back onto the City of Beacon’s payroll as a consultant for the construction of the multi-million dollar new firehouse. This was briefly discussed publicly, but never brought to an official appointment after information about Tim Dexter was submitted to the then new City Council, according to Jason Hughes, a Beacon business owner of The Yard. Therefore, Dave Buckley remained on as Acting Building Inspector until Cory Wirthmann was appointed in July 2023.

Enter Cory Wirthmann

Beacon hired Cory Wirthmann as Deputy Building Inspector, in July 2023. Cory also co-owns the olive oil shop on Main Street, Scarborough Fare. Additionally, Cory is the fire chief in New Palz. Now that Bruce is leaving, Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White is recommending that Cory Wirthmann is appointed to Acting Building Inspector when Bruce leaves while they search the civil service list for an applicant match.

What Does The Building Inspector Do?

The Building Inspector interprets zoning laws along with the City Attorney and at times, with the City Council. The Building Inspector interacts with the Beacon community when he or she speaks with business owners or homeowners about any zoning or safety issues that may arise.

While Cory has been in Beacon since July 2023, it seems as though Beacon’s City Council has never met Cory before. Councilmember Molly Rhodes asked City Administrator Chris if the Council could meet Cory. “If he does become Acting Head or Head, if we're able to meet him either as a public session or Executive Session just to kind of get to know him as we did with Bruce. Kind of like, have the ability for the Council to kind of get to know him.”

City Administrator Chris didn’t think that necessary or possible: “I think I would need to check his availability. He’s also a fire chief and has a lot of commitments,” City Administrator Chris said. As a fire chief with a lot of commitments, it is unclear how Cory will perform his duties as Acting Building Inspector for the City of Beacon, if he can’t go down to Town Hall on a Monday night at 7pm to meet City Council. However, Cory did not speak for himself. City Administrator Chris made assumptions for him to block his schedule when Councilmember Molly requested to meet Corry.

Councilmember Molly pressed on: “To be clear, I'm just thinking for, because we did get a chance to meet other Heads of departments.”

City Administrator Chris responded: “I would just say probably the permanent person we would bring into to me of course.” Councilmember Molly pointed out that the Acting status may last a long time: “I'll defer to you once you learn more about how long he might be Acting for and that might also dictate what seems appropriate both from a practical and from a legal perspective.” In the case of the Acting appointment with Dave Buckley, that appointment lasted 2 years before Bruce Flower was hired.

After Bruce Flower Leaves

Councilperson Paloma Wake was interested in information provided from Bruce’s Exit Interview. “This is a request I guess for any person who's leaving us. I assume that if anything relevant comes up in Bruce's exit interview, if it's relevant to hiring the next person, that that would be incorporated by Sara.” Sara Morris is Beacon’s HR Director. The City of Beacon never had an HR Director until around the time they put up their first Diversity Statement in 2020. Gina Bisale was the first HR Director, but she left shortly thereafter and Sara replaced her.

City Administrator Chris responded "I will leave that up to Sara,"

Councilperson Paloma presented an assumption: "It sounds like Bruce is leaving just because there's a bigger opportunity in a bigger city. Still, if there is anything relevant."

City Administrator Chris pressed that Bruce was moving into more of a Building role in the Town of Poughkeepsie, not that of a Zoning influence, stating: “He was in that position for 18 years and then the person above him retired. So we basically borrowed him for 2.5 years from the Town of Poughkeepsie. He also will focus more on the Building aspect and less on Zoning and Planning. They break that down between multiple staff. So they have a person who oversees Planning and Zoning. He will do Building then they have a Code Enforcement person. He's kind of all three of those here. “

How Bruce Flower Was Involved In Nixing 9 Renovated Apartments For People With Low Income During An Affordable Housing Crisis

The old boarding house that had 16 small apartments in it at 925 Wolcott Avenue, with the gorgeous wrap-around porch, that had been a home to people with low income for decades in Beacon burned down in January 2023. It was arson. A male tenant who was living in it was scheduled for eviction that day. He decided instead to douse it in gasoline, torch it, turn himself in, and plead guilty. No one was hurt. No one was inside. Neighboring houses were endangered by the flames and heat of the blaze.

The boarding house was undergoing a complete overhaul of renovations by new owner Yeshia Berger of 925 Wolcott Ave LLC, who bought it in July 2022, to scale down the number of apartments from 16 to 9 units, and keep them as SRO rentals (Single Room Occupancy in apartments or residential hotels in which low-income or welfare tenants live in single rooms). He began to fix the front porch before a permit was issued to him, neighbors told ALBB. Porch work in Beacon is often flagged by Building Inspectors for not being properly permitted first.

However, the neighbors weren’t mad that the old boarding house was gone. They were mad that the owner hadn’t cleaned the burned site quick enough. Insurance payments were delayed, as happens when fires burn down properties. The neighbors then they pursued a media campaign and Change.org petition in June 2023 titled “NO Zoning Variance to allow 'market rate' 9 unit building for 925 Wolcott, Beacon NY” to make sure the boarding house was not rebuilt. The odd thing about including “market rate” in their Change.org petition title is that the apartments were slated to continue to be SRO units, which are reserved for people with low income.

The media campaign included letters from neighbors submitted to Beacon’s Zoning Board of Appeals in the neighbors’ pursuit to get the boarding house re-zoned to be a single-family home after more than 50% of it was destroyed by the fire. They wanted Beacon’s Zoning Board stop the already-in-progress renovation of the property so that low income people could not live there anymore.

The Highlands Current presented it this way: “The owner of a Beacon boardinghouse that was destroyed by fire in January wants to rebuild, although the surrounding neighborhood is zoned for single-family homes.” The boarding house had been there long before some of the people opposing its use lived in that neighborhood.

In fact, ALBB’s own co-host of our podcast, “Wait, What Is That?” Brandon Lillard, had looked at it with his mother 30 years ago when they were moving to Beacon from Brooklyn, before he attended high school at the Old Beacon High School when it was actually a school, not commercial studio spaces like it is now.

The new property owner, Yeshia Berger, wanted to rebuild his building and continue with the 9 SRO apartments as planned and previously approved in December 2022, just one month before the arson.

According to reporting, Yeshia bought the boarding house for $650,000 and was estimated to be making $20,000/month from the SRO rentals.

Neighbors pushed fervently to prevent the boarding house from rising again, which had been housing people of varying backgrounds for decades. They used the income to present a case of glut and profits as part of their justification to nix the apartments.

Some neighbors alluded to fights or gunshots that would happen at or near the boarding house. Others said in their letters to the Zoning Board: “What we need is affordable housing, not this extreme demonstration of wealth.” Ironic, that the apartments provided in this boarding house, and the apartments that the developer Yeshia Berger was going to rebuild, were zoned as affordable housing.

925 Wolcott Avenue after arson destroyed the decades old, multi-apartment boarding house located there. This is the new Single Family home that was constructed by Faust, with encouragement from the neighborhood who petitioned for the former property owner Yeshia Berger to be stripped of his right to re-build the SRO apartments during an Affordable Housing Crisis, with the Encouragement of then Building Inspector Bruce Flower.

The anti-apartment rhetoric from the neighbors questions if they really want affordable housing after all. Especially when the boarding house later sold for half the price for which Yeshia had purchased it. After the re-zoning and the sale, the luxury designers and builders Faust Interiors took it on, resulting in profits going to a different group perhaps more approved of by the neighbors, yielding a very comfortable home for even fewer families.

Building Inspector Bruce Flower denied Yeshia the right to rebuild the apartments, citing 3 reasons, as reported here.

Bruce supplied his 3 recommendations, but the Beacon Zoning board reversed 2 of them, according to the Highlands Current. “Had they reversed all of them, the 9 apartments would be able to be re-built,” the newspaper reported. Neighbors, however, through the petition, were intent on stopping the income from the apartments, with possibly no regard for new renters who needed to occupy the apartments.

James Case-Leal, the creator of the petition, stated reasons in an Update to the petition to encourage people to turn out to reject the building of the apartments when Yeshia continued his legal appeals to be able to rebuild, which included encouragement to come out to the Zoning Board Meeting to:

prevent “another attempt to persuade the Zoning Board to bend the law for them to make a huge profit off of our community,” and
“express your support of Beacon zoning and opposition to the developer’s appeal to build another SRO.” The building was already an SRO, being renovated to serve 9 units instead of 16 units for different people to move into in order to stay in Beacon.

Through his attorney, Taylor Palmer of Cuddy and Feder, Yeshia said he would appeal the decision. But he ended up listing his charred property for $279.000, and sold it for $315,000 according to Zillow.

In its reporting of the zoning change, the Highlands Current quoted the Zoning Board’s conclusive direction as: “In its resolution denying Berger’s request, the ZBA said it was not ‘deciding the merits of the applicant’s proposed use and/or any opposition’ but was only making decisions on the building inspector’s determinations.” The one Zoning Board dissenter on the vote wanted to hire a consultant to test the boarding house owner’s presentation of findings. Circles were going to continue until Yeshia was out.

The newspaper reported: “Berger would only have been allowed to proceed with his December plans if the ZBA had reversed all three of Flower’s determinations. “

Articles used in 925 Wolcott research to aid in timeline:

4/7/2023
”Beacon Wants Burned Home Cleared Out"

7/21/2023
"Beacon Boardinghouse Denied But Appeal Expected"
This article included a brief history of why the boarding house may have been created in the first lace, to help the community, from Denise Doring VanBuren, president of the Beacon Historical Society, and Diane Lapis, a society trustee.

8/18/2023
"Boardinghouse Owner Asks for Variance"

The attorneys for Yeshia, stated in a letter of appeal to Beacon’s Zoning Board: “A plain reading of Zoning Code section 223.20.D does not terminate a legal existing non-oncoming use that was destroyed more than 50% and any ambiguity regarding this damaged building regulation must be read in favor of the property owner.”

The Attorney's Conclusion:

“Any interpretation that Section 223-10.(D) of the Zoning Code allows a non-conforming use to be extinguished when more than 50% of a structure is destroyed would create a dangerous precedent incentivizing the future destruction of similar structures. A plain reading of the applicable section of the regulations regarding a building that is destroyed more than 50% clearly does not regulate the use.”

How Bruce Flower Was Involved In Adding An Additional Misdemeanor Complaint That Contributed To The Imprisoning Of The “Free Palestine” Chalk Artist Ryan Manzi

Back in March 2024, a series of events rolled together, landing one well known Beacon resident and artist, Ryan Manzi, in jail for 4 months after he chalked “Free Palestine” onto the long, non-descript brick wall that is the back of the Sun River Health Facility on Henry Street, but the back of it is 341 Main Street.

White paint dripping down the wall after someone applied it over the chalk of the Free Palestine message.

White paint spread over the chalk of the Palestinian flag.

At 3:40pm on March 25, 2024, Ryan visited the wall where he had chalked “Free Palestine” and various other designs, including Scooby Doo and a lucky shamrock for the annual St. Paddy’s Parade in Beacon. Known for his chalk art around town in front of the Towne Cryer, the Post Office, Smoker’s Mecca and other spots, seeing him here was part of a normal day in Beacon.

Not normal, however, was when someone that so far has never been identified, poured white paint over the words “Free Palestine” and the Palestinian flag Ryan chalked onto the building. No other marking had paint on it. This act of paint throwing could be viewed as a hate crime or antisemetic crime, since it desecrated a semetic symbol, and permanently damaged a building.

Ryan inspected the paint to see what could be learned from the application, and then re-chalked the “Free Palestine” message and flag. A Little Beacon Blog videoed it, and published an article about it. Many people walked by as Ryan chalked, saying hello to Ryan, and cheering him on.

The Misdemeanor Complaint From Sun River Health

Bruce Flower contacted Sun River Health about the the chalk art and graffiti, according to a Misdemeanor Complaint filed by the Regional Director of Facilities for Sun River, Marco P. Faustino. In the complaint that ALBB has seen, Marco acknowledged that the paint and the chalk were done by different people, but told Bruce that graffiti had been an “ongoing issue” at the building, without identifying who did that graffiti. Bruce recommended that Marco file a report with the Beacon Police, which he did. Notable, however, is that it is unknown at this time if Bruce had called Sun River about this other graffiti that Marco mentioned, or if it was over the “Free Palestine” marking, with separate paint splattered on top of it by a different person.

Chris White, City Administrator for the City of Beacon.

Soon after Bruce contacted Sun River, on April 4, 2024, City Administrator Chris White had an interaction with Ryan while Ryan was crossing Wolcot, walking to the train station. The interaction led to the arrest of Ryan. While Ryan was in jail for the interaction with City Administrator Chris, the Misdemeanor Complaint for chalk art was added to Ryan’s charges, keeping him in jail for 4 months. Ryan was released on a plea agreement to probation.

City Administrator Chris alleged in his Police Report that as Ryan was crossing the street, “Ryan stopped in the roadway and began to give me the finger. I gave him the finger in return and drove past him as he proceeded to move off toward the sidewalk and descend the staircase toward Beacon Police Station.” Ryan says he did not “give the finger,” and told ALBB that he thought he heard Chris shout “terrorist” to him out the window. City Administrator Chris denied doing that, when ALBB asked for confirmation. In a seperate incident, City Administrator Chris did have this altercation with pro-Palestinian demonstrators at a City Council Swearing In Ceremony that the NYCLU said violated the Open Meetings Law, as City Administrator Chris blocked signage and called for the arrest of peaceful citizens.

“I have never had any personal interactions with Ryan before today,” Chris said in his Police Report. “I’ve learned of Ryan’s identity from a recent Beacon Blog where he was observed to be chalking a brick wall on Main Street.” The report goes on to detail more of their interaction. Ryan Manzi is the nephew of Michael Manzi, the Superintendent of Streets for the City of Beacon.

There is more to this story, which will be printed in a future article series.