Letter From The Editor: How The $20K Grant Article - With Conflict Of Interest Implications - Got Written

The genesis for Beacon’s Community Investment Grant "Beacon Recreation Committee and City Face Scrutiny For Allocating 37% of $20,000 Community Investment Grant To Committee Member's Global Organization, Denying Food Benefits To Farmer's Market And More" did not start out as a hunt for details about the recipients, or about who didn’t get funded. It started out as a positive low-hanging-fruit piece, to announce the recipients. That was it. Something happy. Everyone wants something happy from A Little Beacon Blog, right? Right. This was an easy delivery.

Being that I missed my opportunity to share the announcement that the awards opened up for applications because we were in the throws of the genocide of Israel murdering Palestinians in February - we were trying to still publish Beacon content via 14 Days of Valentine’s Day Gift Guide - while publishing awareness pieces of the genocide.

In trying to find something easy and positive to publish, the Community Investment Grant seemed a no-brainer. But during the City Council Meeting announcing the awards, strange things happened. City Administrator Chris White began the presentation by throwing the Parks and Recreation Director Mark Price under the bus when Mark was not in attendance (Mark is normally a very punctual, well-spoken person). Chris announced: “I think Mark forgot.” Then, Chris definitively told us: “About half the Committee really was not interested in this task,” referring to vetting and recommending grant applicants.

Then, after Chris announced the winners - which he named by organization only - one Councilmember, Paloma Wake, asked him to describe on of the winners - The Sports Bra Project - because, she said: “It's not totally clear to me what the program does. Probably helpful for the community to hear how they can access this if it applies to them.”

Councilperson Amber Grant quickly flew in to vouch for the organization, saying she had Googled it, and it came up in an article at the local newspaper the Highlands Current that was published 2 months before the opening of the grant applications, of which one of the committee members Heidi Kitlas is married to a reporter there (Jeff Simms, but he did not write that article). Heidi had voted on the Sports Bra Project, but its founder Sarah, did not vote at all.

Amber encouraged viewers of the City Council meeting, and writers of the titillating Meeting Minutes, to also Google the article. Mayor Lee then also vouched for the organization, saying “I know it's a Beacon-specific organization.” I didn’t think about it until later, but neither of them, nor Chris, mentioned the name of the founder of the organization.

Ok. So all seemed legit, right? City Administrator Chris impatiently hurried this part of the meeting to close so that the City Council could vote on, it, which they did. Done. Money allocated.

But…that part about the Recreation Committee not being “interested” stuck. Who was on the Recreation Committee? Who are these people who are not interested in awarding money to community groups, when they are tasked with helping the City of Beacon serve people through recreational activities? It didn’t make sense. Thankfully, I had childcare for the evening. So I was able to continue on with research. Otherwise, I would have disappeared into Kid Land and forgotten all about it.

Off to Google I went. Found the Recreation Committee member names. Great. Next: Google the article about the Sports Bra Project like Amber told us to. Check. Name of Sara Dwyer-Shick was in the article. Went to the Sports Bra Project website. There were no names there. But exciting PR about them being featured in Australia! Then I read about their deliveries to Namibia. Great concept!

My article shifted to become about City Administrator Chris White’s quote that threw Mark Price and the entire Recreation Committee under the bus. Usually this happens in the basement of Town Hall in the meeting rooms, where people in different departments just rip each other apart. I witnessed it when I was Chair of the Spirit of Beacon Day. Being accustomed to cis white man patriarchal banter, I knew that people were just surviving down there around the meeting table and in the hallways. But when it makes its way up to the courtroom during City Council Meetings, it’s like…gross.

But whatever. Is is what it is. I went to copy/paste the names of the Recreation Committee into the article, and that’s when I recognized Sarah Dwyer-Shick’s name, as being the founder of the Sports Bra Project and a Recreation Committee Member.

I did a double-take. I basically did a quadruple take. I wanted to call someone to confirm, but who is there to call. Chris White has everyone on lock-down from answering questions to ALBB. I was on my own. I deep dove, and published the article.

The next night at a sports event, I heard from people who read the article. They said that their friends asked them about the findings in the article: “Is it true?” I said to the reader: “Even I (ALBB) had to ask myself 5 times if it was true! I couldn’t believe it!” I got more questions from people, asking what the Conflict of Interest Policy was for the Beacon Recreation Committee. I didn’t know!

Next day, I heard from more people. More than one person said: “I miss Randy. I voted for Lee, but I miss Randy.” Former Mayor Randy Casale was a gruff but firm person. Many were rubbed the wrong way with him. He got voted out to Lee. But. He usually duked it out with whoever to arrive at the answer that seemed correct. I liked that about him. I voted for him each time he ran.

Back to the article research. I went looking for the office on Henry Street of the Sports Bra Project that was pictured in the article, and I still haven’t found it. Maybe it’s being sublet from someone else in the only office building on Henry Street. Maybe it’s in a cute house or apartment there.

And that’s how this story happened.

NYCLU Says Beacon's City Administrator Chris White Violated The Open Meetings Law For Blocking Ceasefire Sign and Calling For Arrest Of Citizens

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Beacon’s City Administrator placing his hands on a pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide protester at Beacon’s City Council and Mayoral Swearing In Ceremony while Congressman Pat Ryan spoke.

Senior Staff Attorney for the NYCLU (New York Civil Liberties Union), Beth Haroules, sent notice to The City of Beacon’s Administrator Chris White, Mayor Lee Kyriacou and the City Council that City Administrator Chris’ behavior violated the Open Meetings Law during Beacon’s Swearing-In Ceremony for City Council and Mayor on January 6, 2024 when Chris prevented the protesters from silently holding their Pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide banner that read “Ceasefire” while Congressman Pat Ryan gave remarks.

The letter described the scene, which has been published in full below, and includes description of public video footage of both the ceremony from the front of the room where the Mayor was, and the disruption in the back of the room by the City Administrator. That video footage has been published at the bottom of this article.

“We urge the City to avoid treating silent protestors who may attend City meetings and events this way.”

— Beth Haroules, Senior Staff Attorney at the NYCLU

The Letter, Republished In Full

Dear Mayor Kyriacou and City Administrator White:

On behalf of the New York Civil Liberties Union, we write to express our concerns about the events surrounding a peaceful and silent protest conducted at the Beacon Mayoral and City Council swearing-in ceremony on January 6, 2024 by residents of Beacon who were attending this public event. We urge the City to avoid treating silent protestors who may attend City meetings and events this way, and to respect the First Amendment rights of protesters going forward.

“The silent protesters did not shout or interrupt Representative Ryan – they simply told the people holding down the banner that they would not let it go.”

— Beth Haroules, Senior Staff Attorney at the NYCLU

The Events of January 6, 2024

The Memorial Building, where the Swearing In Ceremony took place in Beacon on January 6, 2024.

The swearing-in event was held at the Veterans Memorial Building, owned by the City of Beacon and currently occupied and used by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (“VFW”). It was a governmental event that was very much open to the public. During the swearing-in event, Mayor Kyriacou introduced U.S. Representative Pat Ryan to address the gathering.

Representative Ryan has been greeted at his public speaking events by various of his constituents requesting that he support a ceasefire in Gaza. As Representative Ryan began to speak, four people (three of whom are residents of Beacon, all of whom are Representative Ryan’s constituents) who were sitting in the last row of seats stood up and unfurled a small black cloth banner that read “Ceasefire” in white letters.

“Nevertheless, the City Administrator directed the police officers in attendance to arrest these peaceful protesters. The officers indicated that they would not arrest anyone unless a VFW representative asked them to do so..”

— Beth Haroules, Senior Staff Attorney at the NYCLU

Christopher White, the City Administrator, and several people in attendance immediately moved to the side of and behind these four silent protesters and tried to hold down the banner. The silent protesters did not shout or interrupt Representative Ryan – they simply told the people holding down the banner that they would not let it go. The videotape of the swearing-in event, with a camera angle on Representative Ryan and the Mayor and other members of the City Council, shows that no one at the front of the hall appeared to be disturbed. No one even turned in their seats or appeared to be looking at the back of the VFW Hall. Representative Ryan continued his remarks, undisturbed and without pause. The videotape of the swearing-in event revealed no other noises in the hall other than the Representative’s remarks to the audience.

Nevertheless, the City Administrator directed the police officers in attendance to arrest these peaceful protesters. The officers indicated that they would not arrest anyone unless a VFW representative asked them to do so; they immediately apparently got that request and moved to arrest these silent protestors. Threatened with arrest, the peaceful protesters, one of whom was carrying an infant in a chest carrier, left the swearing-in event, escorted by police officers.

Preventing the Protesters from Silently Holding Their Banner Violated the Open Meetings Law

New York’s Open Meetings Law 3 (“Open Meetings Law”) provides members of the public with the right to observe and listen to a variety of meetings of public bodies. Several Open Meetings Law Advisory Opinions expressly address signage. In Open Meetings Advisory Opinion 52964, the Committee on Open Government of the State Department of the State of New York (“Committee”) provided guidance on the ability of government bodies to regulate signs at meetings open to the public. In doing so, the Committee listed as primary considerations: whether signs would be disruptive or obtrusive, whether the signs or sign holders would block a person from observing the proceedings or block an exit or create a fire code violation or would be obscene. [In the absence of these factors, the Committee indicated that signs should not be barred from an open meeting?] None of these circumstances existed at the swearing-in event. The peaceful protesters stood holding their banner in the last row of seats at the back of the hall and were silent throughout except to the extent that they told those seeking to push down the banner that they simply would not let it go. None of this exchange is even reflected in the video recording of the swearing-in event.

The Removal of the Protesters Upon Threat of Arrest Clearly Violated the First Amendment.

It is also well-settled that anyone may attend meetings of local public bodies in New York. This right of access is guaranteed by New York’s Open Meetings Law, 5 the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, section 8 of the New York State Constitution. The only restrictions on this right of public access relate to keeping order in the meeting. Though the Council is authorized to adopt rules for its operations,6 its authority is not unlimited. Indeed, to the extent that the City Council Meeting Rules in effect at that time applied to that gathering, they did not address signage and cannot be interpreted to have prevented the attendees from silently holding the banner at the swearing-in event.7

Events like the swearing-in event are a “limited public forum” and, as such, any limitation on speech must be reasonable in light of the purpose of the forum.8 Further, any restrictions imposed must be viewpoint-neutral.9 Accordingly, a governmental body may not use an improper reason, such as a dislike for a particular speaker’s viewpoint, as a basis to silence a person or exclude them from a public meeting, which is what apparently happened here.10

The protection of public access to open meetings serves fundamental constitutional values. The purpose of an open, public government meeting is to allow the public to understand, inform, petition and influence its government. In light of this purpose, it was patently unreasonable to prevent these Beacon residents from petitioning their elected official, Representative Ryan, to threaten to have the silent banner holders removed from the event space, and to threaten their arrest Conclusion

Permitting citizens to engage with their government is a critical role of public officials in a democracy. We request that you review the events that took place at the swearing-in event, acknowledge that the city of Beacon should have let the protesters hold their banner and not be threatened with arrest, and ensure that such events going forward are handled consistently with the First Amendment and applicable New York State law.

We are of course available to discuss these matters with you at a mutually agreeable time. Please let us know if you would like to do so.

Footnotes:

1 See City of Beacon, All Events: Swearing-In Ceremony for Mayor and Councilmembers, January 6 @ 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM, available at https://beaconny.gov/index.php/events/swearing-in-ceremony-for-mayor-and-councilmembers/.

2 See City of Beacon Swearing In 01-06-24, Beacon YouTube channel, available at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fbeaconny.gov%2F&feature=emb_title&source_ve_path=MzY4NDIsMzY4NDIsMzY4NDIsMzY4NDIsMzY4NDIsMzY4NDIsMzY4NDIsMjM4NTE&v=XNT-XeXQbSY.

3 NY Public Officers Law, Article 7.

4 Advisory Opinion 5296 may be found at: https://docsopengovernment.dos.ny.gov/coog/otext/o5296.doc. See also Advisory Opinion 3845, which may be found at https://doccs.dos.ny/coog/otext/o3845.htm.

5 Id.

6 The Beacon City Council does not appear to have any published rules relating to its operations at public meetings.

7 City Council Rule of Procedure 8(d)(8)(i) reads: The audience shall be respectful of all speakers and shall refrain from comments and gestures, private discussions, cell phone use, or other conduct that interferes with the orderly progression of the meeting or in any way discourages free speech.

8 See Devine v. Village of Port Jefferson, 849 F. Supp. 185, 189-90 (E.D.N.Y. 1994) (analyzing village board meeting as a limited public forum); see also City of Madison Joint School Dist. No. 8 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 429 U.S. 167, 174-76 (1976) (suggesting that any portion of a meeting of a public body that the body opens for public comment is a limited public forum); Norse v. City of Santa Cruz, 629 F.3d 966, 976 (9th Cir. 2010) (holding that First Amendment protections of a limited public forum applied not only during the public comment period of the meeting, but also throughout the entire meeting), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 112 (2011).

9 See Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 829 (1995) (stating that “[t]he State may not exclude speech where its distinction is not ‘reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum,’ nor may it discriminate against speech on the basis of its viewpoint.” (quoting Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund,
Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 806 (1985)).

10 See White v. City of Norwalk, 900 F.2d 1421,1425 (9th Cir. 1990).

11 See We the People, Inc., of the U.S. v. Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 746 F. Supp. 213, 216-18 (D.D.C. 1990)
(signs that do not block the public’s view are permissible).

Beacon's City Administrator Blocks NAMI's Mental Health Ribbon Campaign To Preserve Lamppost Health

During last night’s City Council Meeting (3-18-2024) in what was expected to be a easy passage of two requests from NAMI Mid-Hudson to pass a Proclamation to make May Mental Health Awareness Month in Beacon, as well as NAMI’s once-annual public service ribbon and yard sign campaign to promote awareness about their services for families living with special needs from mental health considerations, as well as to reduce the stigma on mental health which can reduce the likelihood that people seek out support, the executive team at NAMI Mid-Hudson was met with resistance by Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White, stating that he wanted to preserve Beacon’s lampposts from the PSA ribbons, and intended to restrict NAMI’s temporary PSA lawn signs from being distributed, citing zoning code, without identifying which code number or how the code was being interpreted.

Executive Director George Czornyj and Program Director Jo Ann Brown were presenting. NAMI’s ribbon and sign campaign has happened in Beacon from 2014-2022. During the meeting, it was also discovered that NAMI had been denied permission in 2023 to hang their white ribbons in Beacon. NAMI’s ribbon work in other municipalities continues.

After NAMI Mid-Hudson’s presentation on why the ribbon campaign was so crucial to reaching new people, City Administrator Chris told the Council: “I would like to have a conversation at Workshop because the lawn signs are not allowed under a code. We have also had a multi-year campaign to try get our lampposts back into shape. Some of those are being painted. We did not approve this last year. I would like the opportunity to chime in at a Workshop.”

Mayor Lee Kyriacou, who has a daughter with Autism, did not disagree, replying: “Great. We can certainly do a Proclamation. That is certainly not a problem.”

Councilmember Amber Grant spoke up: "Yeah, I would like to discuss. I appreciate the lampposts and all that. Maybe there's some trees or other things we can identify that would be a way to show support without necessarily impacting the light posts and all of that. I look forward to discussing."

Councilmember Paloma Wake agreed: "I would like to second what Amber said."

The impact of ribbons on the lampposts will be discussed at a later Workshop. City Administrator Chris did not cite which zoning code the lawn signs did not comply with. Could be 183-2, or 223-15 Signs. City Administrator Chris has been known to target other signs of other entities. It is unclear if his sign targeting is balanced to all who put out signs for designated reasons, or targeted to his digression. For instance, temporary green shamrocks were secured onto lampposts by the Parade of Green, a committee member of that organization said, which was granted by the City of Beacon.

Which Zoning Code In Question Disallows the Lawn Signs?

Possible sign codes City Administrator Chris is referring to may include 223-15, and do not seem to indicate that the white ribbons and lawn signs would be in non-compliance:

F. Temporary signs.

(1) A temporary sign is a nonilluminated sign that is used in connection with a circumstance, situation or event that is designed, intended or expected to take place or to be completed within a reasonably short or definite period after the erection of such sign, such as signs displayed during campaigns, drives or events of civic, political, philanthropic, educational or religious institutions. If such sign display area is permanent but the message displayed is subject to periodic changes, that sign shall not be regarded as "temporary." Unless otherwise provided in this section, signs shall not be considered temporary if they are effectively displayed on an ongoing basis, interrupted by short intervals when they are not displayed. Temporary signs shall not require a permit under this section, unless located in the public right-of-way or on public property.

For instance, a grand opening looks to be protected in Section F 4-C:

Signs indicating that a special event such as a grand opening, fair, carnival, circus, festival or similar event is taking place on the lot where the sign is located, not exceeding 40 square feet in area in nonresidence districts and six square feet in residence districts, and limited to one sign for each street frontage of the lot. The sign shall not be posted sooner than two weeks prior to the special event and shall be removed by the individual or organization which posted, or caused to be posted, such sign within three calendar days following the special event.

Perhaps the City’s Attorney will have a different interpretation at the next Workshop Meeting.

Partnership Background on NAMI Mid-Hudson and Beacon

“To be continued on how the health of the lampposts will be maintained or impacted by a PSA campaign to increase awareness about how to improve and maintain the mental health of humans.”

NAMI partners with the local organization I Am Beacon, which was co-created by Reuben Simmons, a 22 year employee of the City of Beacon in the Highway Department, who is mixed race and identifies as Black. City Administrator Chris has spent close to $200,000 in Employee Discipline to terminate Reuben, for reasons not clear or proven in hearings.

According to I Am Beacon, in 2023, NAMI Mid-Hudson independently requested permission from the City of Beacon to run their ribbon campaign. NAMI has partnered on the campaign with I Am Beacon since 2014, and was on the Planning Committee for the mental health awareness concert that I Am Beacon organized, called Rock Out 4 Mental Health, of which A Little Beacon Blog also participated on the Planning Committee. “Last year,” said I Am Beacon, “we thought permission for the campaign would be pretty straightforward. We told NAMI to just go ask for permission. We were surprised when they were denied last year.”

This year, I Am Beacon decided to present with NAMI Mid-Hudson during a public City Council Meeting on 3-18-2024, so that everyone could learn about NAMI Mid-Hudson and learn about why their ribbon and lawn sign campaign is necessary. This slide-deck was produced, that contains many resources for families, and testimonials from individuals who have benefited from NAMI’s resources.

Mental Health Needs Are Large In Beacon

Beacon citizens know each other on the sidewalk. Whether they live in houses or apartments or not. Beacon citizens know which of us need a little extra help and compassion. It is not always very obvious who to call when someone is in distress.

For instance: ALBB witnessed what looked to be a father/son (or caregiver/young adult) in a combative situation coming out of the Telephone Building on S. Brett and Main Street. The man dragged the younger man out of the building in a chokehold, and then punched him in the face. A struggle ensued, where the younger man fell to the ground, was mainly calm and limp, until being stuffed into a car, where he resisted. The younger may have be Autistic. ALBB got it on video and a civilian called the police. The police arrived and were told by the man that it was a family situation, and was handled.

ALBB sent the video to the police in the hopes of filing a Police Report, not knowing if that was even the best thing to do. Information was submitted to the police, but no followup has happened. It left those of us who saw the incident feeling helpless for the young man, and for the older man who seemed to not be handling the situation in an educated manner. Hitting someone into obedience is not the answer.

During NAMI’s presentation last night, they stressed the value of calling the Dutchess County Help Line to get guidance to resources by calling 988 or 845-485-9700. The ribbons and lawn signs can help provide the visual for this awareness.

NAMI Mid-Hudson Answers Mental Health Needs In Beacon City School District.

NAMI Mid-Hudson presented to Beacon High School for their United Way Audit in November 2021, which you can read in their packet. Right after the presentation, a teacher, sent NAMI this success story:

"I am writing this letter hoping those that read it will understand the value of NAMI Mid-Hudson's ETS program along with Jo Ann Brown and her young adult presenters to the Beacon City School District Community. In my 15 years of teaching, I have not found a more valuable resource. ETS gives students real life examples. It extends what we teach in health class with relatable real life stories. They literally get resources and a Trusted Adult List in their hands. The students are listening! This presentation gave me the tools to work with students and what I have learned helped me to save a student.”

The letter went on to say how a student on a hybrid call reached out to the teacher during the call because they were feeling very troubled and needed help. The teacher said they felt comfortable asking the student questions in order to get answers that got the student help. The teacher said that the questions they asked were because of the information they got from NAMI.

To Be Continued…

To be continued on how the health of the lampposts will be maintained or impacted by a PSA campaign to increase awareness about how to improve and maintain the mental health of humans.

Beacon's City Council Announces Passage Of Law Prohibiting Evictions Without Good Cause - Mayor Votes Against - Council's Responses

On Monday, March 7, 2022, Beacon’s entire City Council voted to pass a law prohibiting residential evictions without good cause, known to some as the “Good Cause Eviction Law.” Mayor Lee Kyriacou, who is a landlord, voted against the law. The press release prepared by Beacon’s City Council has been provided in full below.

Beacon’s Eviction Without Good Cause Law accounts for many situations, including requiring landlords to provide good cause to raise the rent above 5% if contested by their existing tenant requesting proof of necessity if the tenant/landlord discussions break down and the landlord pursues going to court to let a judge decide on the legality of the rent increase.

Where Is This Law Coming From?

Beacon is joining in the national movement within the housing crisis for all people to not let long-term rentals be a cut-throat rental market business model anymore. Other municipalities in this area have crafted and signed similar legislation, including Newburgh, Kingston, Poughkeepsie and Albany. Each of those communities, including Beacon, experienced the decimation of many of their historic buildings during the federally funded program Urban Renewal, which ended up mattering when rent regulation laws were enacted. Albany currently has one lawsuit against it, brought on by three landlords and their companies, asking for the law to be rescinded, as reported in the Times Union. There is proposed legislation in New York State Legislature that would enact a similar measure statewide.

It is in part because of that destruction that these communities cannot enact forms of rent stabilization found in New York City today. A new law in New York State, the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 2019, allows for a declaration of a housing crisis in a locality, but is based on having a number of historic buildings still in tact. However, as has been especially demonstrated in the past several years, laws are created, and laws are walked back upon when levels of harm are represented by groups of people advocating for change.

Residential Real Estate As A Business Model

During this process of legislative debate, advocates for Beacon’s law stressed that housing is a human right and needs more protection. Landlords who showed up to public meetings to speak answered that money they invested in a property is their retirement plan and should not be impeded upon. However, price hikes in any business model usually proves bad for business, and results in a client-business breakdown. Some Beacon landlords showed up to speak in favor of the law.

Even in the short-term rental market, or a client-services market - if a client is used to paying one price over a long period of time - to suddenly hike that price usually ruins the business/client relationship. In the housing market, the long-term landlord may replace the tenant quickly in an unregulated market, but in the equally unregulated service or even the short-term rental industry which has online reviews tied to it, pricing is regulated by online reviews (social pressure), proper business relationships, and providing great service. Because secure housing is such a desperate need, some residential landlords don’t often face social pressure to keep rent increases stable, or provide stellar service in some cases.

Said the lead author of the law, Councilmember Dan Aymar-Blair, to A Little Beacon Blog about the passage of this law: “Tenant-landlord issues are most often resolved out of court and I hope that continues. The law has clear definitions of what constitutes good cause eviction and that framework can be used for discussions before anybody has to go to court. I hope landlords and management companies that depend on abusing tenants for profit margins will see their business model won't work in Beacon.

“I hope that Beacon will next come together to address the lack of affordable housing for all income ranges. Good cause eviction means that tenants can organize and participate without fear of retaliatory evictions and jacked rents.”

Was This Vote Expected This Night?

The week prior, The City Council was not anticipating voting on the law on March 7th. Week after week, the law had been pushed forward by the Council to even get it to the stage of Public Hearing, which is where it was the Monday evening of this week. For months, the City Council heard resistance from its retained legal counsel, Keane and Beane, who also represents developers building rental units in the City of Beacon, to advise the City not to create a law, stating on public record that it would be difficult to defend if a lawsuit was brought against the City. The Council then discussed the possibility of hiring a different law firm to represent a lawsuit in that case, should that happen.

Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White stressed throughout several discussions his concern for “fiduciary” spending of taxpayer dollars on legal costs defending this law. It is not clear on his definition of fiduciary, since he has currently authorized at least $110,000 of taxpayer dollars in the pursuit of terminating employment of a longtime city employee of the Highway Department, in addition to over $50,000 in paid-leave salary for that employee to not work during a labor shortage.

This law was in its second round of Public Hearing, where anyone in Beacon could come speak their mind about it. With this law being discussed on social media and out in real life for several months, it was hard for the community to ignore the effort. Landlords came to speak in favor or against, as did tenants. Advocates for the law even held a holiday caroling/protest in December 2021 at Pohill Park, which marched to City Council to confront the then City Councilmembers during their last days on council before the new members started.

Self-Fulfilling Prophesy Of Rent Hikes Before The Law Passed

After at least one tenant came forward to public City Council Meetings to speak in favor of the law, word circulated that some landlords had begun raising rents in anticipation of the free-for-all rent hike situation getting regulated.

That Beacon tenant reported at the next Public Hearing, that after she spoke in public at a City Council Meeting, she had subsequently asked her landlord to fix something necessary in her apartment, whereby she received by text from her landlord saying that he would fix it. In the same text, he declared he was also raising her month-to-month rent by $600/month. This hike, after an agreed upon hike of $100/month over the summer, resulted in a $700/month hike within one year, she told A Little Beacon Blog. This renter is White, works in the non-profit sector, and volunteers to teach classes in a corrections facility in the evenings.

Usually, if the City Council expects to vote on a legally binding resolution the night of the closing of a Public Hearing, the Resolution is noted in the official Agenda for the City Council, and a vote is taken that evening. This can be fore anything simple like having a Public Hearing for allowing firefighters to live further away from Beacon, hearing from the community, and then voting affirmatively right after if the public doesn’t bring overwhelming objection.

But this vote wasn’t on the evening’s agenda after the Council closed the Public Hearing, yet they discussed putting it on the agenda during the opening of the meeting. A Little Beacon Blog asked Councilmember Dan if the Council expected to vote that evening. He answered: “Yes. When we started to hear that landlords were retaliating against renters, we had no choice. Seeing that the outstanding amendments would have weakened the law and allowed this retaliation to continue for another month, we pressed forward.”

When asked if he was surprised to see it not initially on the agenda, Councilmember Dan answered: “No, it wasn’t an issue.” You can listen to how they all discussed putting the vote on the agenda at the beginning of the City Council Meeting here.

When Did This “Eviction Without Good Cause” Movement Start?

In the Before Times, during the pre-pandemic days, and during the former administration under Mayor Randy Casale, rents were already on the rise in Beacon. Former Councilmember Terry Nelson suggested pursuing the Emergency Tenants Protection Act of 2019. During that administration, where Lee Kyriacou was then a Councilmember, the common response by then Mayor Casale and some councilmembers to Councilmember Terry’s urging was that rents would self regulate under market conditions.

When the new administration came in, with former Councilmember Lee Kyriacou winning the election to become Mayor, the new Mayor Lee Kyriacou gave a platform for the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 2019 to be considered, after Councilmember Terry continued to bring it up. Mayor Lee would state that he was doubtful that Beacon qualified for the tenant protection. Yet he dedicated space at a public Workshop Meeting for expert opinion to explain why Beacon did not qualify.

The Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 2019 requires a locality to know its rental vacancy rate, and of those, that the buildings are ones built between February 1, 1947 and December 31, 1973. Many of Beacon’s buildings that were of that age had been bulldozed during the federally ordered Urban Renewal period. You can get an introduction to Urban Renewal from the blog Newburgh Restoration, who describes it as a “tragedy” when mentioning how 1,300 buildings were demolished there, 9 streets “plowed under,” and “The city’s African American community was uprooted, with thousands of businesses and residents displaced.” A similar situation happened in Beacon. The Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 2019 requires that these buildings still exist to qualify.

During the time of Beacon’s Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 2019 discussion, Mayor Lee also stated that Beacon does not have a housing survey to know its vacancy rate. He did not imply that Beacon was in a hurry to conduct such a study. However, he did support spending at minimum of $50,000 on a Parks and Recreation study to be told what people want from a central Community Center. Two such centers used to exist in Beacon, and Beacon’s current tiny Parks and Rec building at 23 West Center Street is bursting at the studs with services and volunteerism.

The City Council’s pursuit of more tenant protections continued, with Councilmember Dan Aymar-Blair pushing to have a Good Cause Eviction Law considered. Councilmember Dan took the lead on drafting the law with other Councilmembers and the City’s retained law firm, Keane and Beane.

A Little Beacon Blog reached out to former Councilmember Terry Nelson to get his take on the passage of this law, and if he thought his early efforts helped from years ago. He responded: “It’s not really for me to say if my efforts helped, but I would like to think they did. It’s always a good thing when renters get the protections they deserve. But any law only works when there is effective enforcement. Attention must be paid to the level of enforcement of the new law.”

What Some City Council Members Said Upon Voting

Before casting his vote of Yes, Councilmember George Mansfield, who consistently voiced concern about leaving renal rates in the hands of a judge on a case-by-case basis, said this to explain his vote in favor of the passage of the law:

“This is a complicated issue, and I appreciate everyone who has come out during the course of this discussion.

“I'd like to first say that Keane and Beane, our lawyers, have represented this community and looked out for them for as long as I've been on council - or maybe I've been here longer than Keane and Beane has, but. So I truly respect your advice and consider that greatly in my decision.

“I also think, that I can see through our discussions, that we have an opportunity to respond to Albany - that there might be an opportunity - I don't feel like we are risking an expensive lawsuit going forward - that we can respond.

“I would have preferred to wait for the Albany decision to come down. But I think we have time to respond between maybe passing this and actually going to quote and the cost of litigation associated with that.

“One of my goals when we pass a law such as this is to help as many people and to hurt as few people in the decision. And in the end, no one is fully happy, and no one got fully what they wanted out of these discussions.

“I think that there is an urgency right now, certainly listening to some - part of the urgency is created not only by the greed, but by the fear of this law being passed. I think that is what is happening to some people. Landlords are raising rents objectionably and unconscionably right now. They've been known to do that in the past as well.

“My decision tonight will be based on helping as many people and hurting as few people going forward. Thank you all for being part of this conversation.

Mayor Kyriacou had this to say before casting his lone vote of No:

“The issue that I have respect to authority is that I have been sitting on Council for a long time. The nature of how City's get their authority from the State is not supported in this area. I'm sorry, but that is what it is. You all may have a different view, and I'm very respectful of that view.

“The second of my concern is, if we are picking away to help renters, and I think we do need to help renters, pitting one part of the community against the other is the wrong way to do this, and this does exactly that. Which I find that just sad.

“I know we want to help renters. Again, the County has announced a rental support program for people in low-income. That I think is the correct approach. It's something that we all as a community pay taxes to support, and I'm supportive of that. Pitting one part of the community against the other is the wrong way to go. I'm just saddened as I listen to us just dividing ourselves.

“The ones that I am focused on helping is low-income renters. There are plenty of renters that have come to Beacon who are fully capable of paying the full rents that are out there now. That's why those rents are out there. If we afford them the same rights, they will push low income renters out, and that's the group I really, really wish to help. I don't think this law is structured correctly do to so. Those are my concerns.”

In answering the Mayor, Councilperson Justice McCray gave their answer before voting in favor of the passage of the law:

“To that point, this law is designed to keep people in their homes, so I don't see how this would push low-income renters out,” Justice said.

“Just to talk about eviction:

“Evicted individuals are 11% to 15% more likely to experience a loss of employment and medical insurance as compared to individuals who have not been evicted (Harvard University)

“Children victimized by eviction are typically forced to transfer schools; a traumatic destruction of stable educational and peer relationships that has been shown to have a lasting negative impact on childhood development. (National Education Policy Center)

“All adult populations, once evicted, experience higher-all cause mortality, increased instances of emergency room visits, higher rates of addiction and relapse, depression, and suicide. (National Library of Medicine)

“Cost-burdened households spend more than 30% of their income on rent, and severely cost-burdened households spend more than 50% (Disrupted)

“I came onto Council as a community organizer working in social and racial justice. Passing Good Cause is crucial for bringing racial justice to housing. More than two-thirds of Black families in New York State rent. Among renters, Black households are the most vulnerable to eviction, the most likely to experience discrimination from landlords, and the ones most likely to be displaced when neighborhoods change.

“High rents and gentrification have had a devastating impact on Black communities in New York State. In my social justice work over the past couple of years, I’ve built connections with Black members of our community who lived here for years, and because they weren’t protected by this law, they’re gone. I don’t get to walk around the corner and share meals with them anymore. If you’ve been here for not even 10 years, you’ve seen the active displacement of Black people in Beacon. Good Cause is an important step in promoting community stability and combating displacement.

“According to a study published last week by the Pratt Center for Community Development Urban Democracy Lab, Legal Aid Society, Housing Justice for All, and the Community Service Society: “Black Households In New York Are 3x As Likely To Face Eviction As White Households”

“Councilmembers and community alike have stated that housing is a human right. It’s not just a philosophy. Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, and housing…

“I support Good Cause Eviction.”

The Press Release From The City Council After The Vote

Below is the press release from the City Council, that has not yet been published to the City’s website yet. In earlier discussions as the law was debated, City Administrator Chris White asked the Keane and Beane attorney if the law, if voted on, could be delayed to be published to the City Code and delay enforcement, to which the attorney answered that it could. It has not been stated as to the date that this law will be published to the City Code.

BEACON, NY MARCH 8, 2022 - In last night’s City Council meeting, the Beacon City Council passed their hard-fought “good cause eviction” law tonight with the support of all six City Council members. By providing Beacon’s housing court with a framework for what constitutes an eviction with good cause, the City Council hopes to end the leniency of eviction proceedings against tenants, allow greater access to due process, and mitigate the displacement of residents. The law builds upon the fact that housing is a human right and that apartments and houses are not just commodities, they are homes.

“To clear up misconceptions, this law does not change that evictions require the courts. What it does is sets relevant standards for the proceedings that protect tenants,” said Wren Longno, Ward 3 Councilmember.

Specifically, grounds for eviction with good cause include:

• Non-payment of rent

• Substantial lease violations

• Property damage

• Committing a nuisance

• Refusal of access

• Illegal activity

• Bad-faith refusal to sign a written lease

• If the landlord wants to move themselves or a family member into the rented unit.

• Additionally, rent increases above 5% will require a justification before a judge in cases where the tenant objects to the increase. The law intends to end the practice of arbitrary evictions and steep rental increases which are de facto evictions.

“Beacon is a popular place to live, and with good reason, but increased rents of 20% or more have become common which is simply impossible for most people.” said Councilmember At-Large Paloma Wake “While this law does not directly address affordable housing per se, we know that stable housing has compounding benefits for the entire city. When basic needs are met, individuals can be more active and thriving members of our community.”

Since Councilmember Dan Aymar-Blair for Ward 4 first introduced the law in August 2021, neighboring communities of Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, and Kingston passed their own similar versions of the law.

While no legal action has been taken against these municipalities, over several workshops, the City Council discussed the potential of a lawsuit brought by landlords. The City Council concluded that the risks posed to the city by a lawsuit were low, particularly the threat of legal expenses.

“Passing Good Cause is essential for bringing racial justice to housing,” said Ward 2 Councilmember Justice McCray. “More than two-thirds of Black families in New York State rent; and among renters, Black households are the most vulnerable to eviction, the most likely to experience discrimination from landlords, and the ones most likely to be displaced when neighborhoods change. If you’ve been here for not even 10 years, you’ve seen the active displacement of black people in Beacon. Black households in New York are three times as likely to face eviction as white households. Good Cause is an important step in promoting community stability [preserving diversity] and combatting displacement.”

Similar laws are still being considered around New York State, including New Paltz and Ithaca. A statewide bill is also actively under consideration.

“Tenants can now organize and speak up about their living conditions without fear of retaliatory evictions and jacked rents,” said Aymar-Blair. “Now that the folks who depend on affordable housing can fearlessly join the conversation, the City Council is ready to turn its attention to creating new affordable housing for low-income residents and working families.”

Molly Rhodes, Ward 1 Councilmember said, “We hope this can be a launching point where both tenants and landlords feel inspired to come together to help the city craft future housing policies and vision.”

From:

City of Beacon Councilmembers Dan Aymar-Blair, Wren Longno, Justice McCray, Molly Rhodes, and Paloma Wake

“Pitting One Part Of The Community Against The Other” - Governing Laws Already Do This

One of Mayor Lee’s stated concerns is for avoiding this legislation is to avoid “pitting one part of the community against the other,” implying tenants vs landlords. This type of “pitting” has already existed in the form of legislation in New York State, especially so in New York City and parts of Albany, Erie, Nassau, Rensselaer, Schenectady, and Westchester counties where rent control is still in effect, according to the Residential Tenants Rights Guide. These members of the community are already pitted against each other when the landlord pursues going to court to evict a tenant - if it reaches that point, and the tenant doesn’t self-evict.

A Little Beacon Blog has spoken to people who work in different areas. Families who have the same job year after year - fixed income if you will - who cannot afford a large rent increase - and then need to move out of Beacon to Wappingers or Newburgh to find comparable rent. Nurses. Home care workers. Self-employed creators. Service-industry folks like bar tenders and restaurant managers can barely afford to live in Beacon, yet they work here. Some commuting from counties over. “Artist lofts” are very limiting for who qualifies to live in those units, and can be discriminatory.

It is unclear who these low-income people are that Mayor Kyriacou says he advocates for, since the people he seems to say can pay these rising rents may be from certain private sectors, or people who rent apartments as second get-away homes, or are never home because their jobs who can afford this rent send these new Beacon citizens to other locations to do their jobs. Or, are the blessed collection of employees who can work remotely from home.

Beacon's First HR Director Resigns After 1.5 Years In Position: Instrumental In Bringing Firearm, Diversity, Etc. Policies

Beacon’s first HR Director, Gina Basile, has resigned after one and a half years in the position. The position which started in July 2020 was originally shared between Fishkill and Beacon. Previously, she spent a number of years with the New York State Bridge Authority.

“I have heard employee concerns about discrimination, inequality, and growing tensions,” Gina stated in her printed presentation. “We need to address these issues head-on, and policies and procedures are only the beginning. We need a long-term plan on how to address these issues.””

— Gina Basile, then Beacon's HR Director

Then City Councilmembers including Terry Nelson expressed relief at hiring an HR Director to help with employment issues. Some issues include the ongoing employment issue the City is pursuing with Reuben Simmons in the Highway Department, which began with City Administrator Anthony Ruggiero, who has since resigned to work for Dutchess County. Anthony was replaced by current City Administrator Chris White.

During her first public presentation to the City Council on December 14, 2020, Gina mentioned “many discussions with our employees about how they feel about working for the City,” ALBB reported at the time. At that time, she also met with the community group Beacon4Black Lives.

After holding a Meet and Greet with all department heads individually, she scheduled a Meet and Greet with the Fire Department, which needed to be rescheduled due to COVID-19-related issues. Gina held a Meet and Greet with the Highway Department, which is where she began her focus to discover overall themes employees experience when working for the City.

According to Gina’s presentation, several themes emerged, including:

• “Concerns surrounding diversity and equality.”

• “Concerns regarding our Hiring Practices.”

• “Growing Tensions in the Workplace.”

• “Lack of clarity in intra-departmental policies and inconsistency.”

Gina confirmed: “I have heard employee concerns about discrimination, inequality, and growing tensions,” Gina stated in her printed presentation. “We need to address these issues head-on, and policies and procedures are only the beginning. We need a long-term plan on how to address these issues.”

A few of Gina’s next public steps were to introduce new policies that the City of Beacon had not had before, including a Firearms Policy, Domestic Violence Policy and Diversity and Inclusion Policy. While some City Councilmembers expressed surprise that anyone would bring a firearm to work, they assumed it occurred in the police department. However, there has been an unreported instance of an employee casually bringing a firearm to work in another department, during a time of increased employment tension.

Gina has accepted the position of Talent Acquisition Manager at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. Gina had also served on the Zoning Board of Appeals for the Town of Hyde Park, according to her LinkedIn.

Beacon Paid $50,452 To Willing and Able Highway Department Employee To Not Work

In 2021, the City of Beacon paid $50,452 of admin leave to Reuben Simmons, an employee with the Highway Department who is of mixed race and identifies as Black. ALBB has confirmed this amount with Reuben when we asked if he would make public his payments from the city for 2021. This is as per union rules as Reuben understands them, when an employee is presented with a discipline, the City can give up to 30 days suspension without pay, after which the employee is placed back on payroll while the process continues. Reuben has been served with 2 disciplines totaling 60 days over a course of at least 8 hearings with the City and their attorneys.

Reuben has worked for the City of Beacon in the Highway Department since 2002, where he started in the Summer Help position. He worked his way up to Laborer, then Maintenance Worker. During that time, he was appointed Union President for the City of Beacon CSEA Local 814 Unit 6662.

In 2017, Reuben was appointed Highway Superintendent, the lead position in that department, by then Mayor Randy Casale, with the support of then City Administrator, Anthony Ruggiero. In 2018, Dutchess County reached out to the City of Beacon to let the City know that the job title was incorrect, and that Superintendent of Streets was the proper title, but required a different Civil Service exam to qualify for the position. Fellow employee Michael “Micki” Manzi qualified for the test, and replaced Reuben as Superintendent of Streets. All of the people mentioned here except Reuben are white. To this day, the job title is stated on the City of Beacon’s website as Highway Superintendent.

During this transition under the management of then City Administrator Anthony Ruggiero, Reuben was not given the opportunity to take the required Civil Service exam in order to accept or maintain his job position of Highway Superintendent. Extending this opportunity to someone in an existing role is not unheard of in the City of Beacon. Listen to Reuben tell it in his own words on the “Wait, What Is That?” podcast.

For example: at the 5/17/2021 City Council Meeting, current City Administrator Chris White announced that longtime Water Department employee Ed Balicki, who is white, would become Superintendent of Water and Sewers. “We are moving Ed to the proper title,” explained City Administrator White to the City Council at that meeting. “Ed will have to take a Civil Service Exam…We don't think there will be any issue.” Ed passed the exam, and was re-titled.

In Reuben’s case, he was stripped of his title, and demoted back down to Maintenance Worker, then promoted to Working Supervisor, and demoted to Maintenance Worker within a 2 year period. During the first week of January 2021, he was placed on his first round of unpaid leave, and the order of City Administrator Chris, accompanied by a stack of charges against him signed by City Administrator Chris, which ALBB did see documentation of. These charges amounted to lists of generalities of what intersections Reuben was accused of not doing work, returning late from lunch, and an auto accident that Reuben reported to his supervisor Michael Manzi by way of announcing it on the Highway Department radio, and again in a later discussion, according to Reuben.

Auto accidents are not uncommon in the Highway Department, or other departments within the City of Beacon where vehicles are driving by city employees. What is not disclosed by the City of Beacon is when these auto accidents happen, and if they are reported. For example, the public is not informed of when the new Highway Garage gets a dent in a garage door,, for instance, or if an employee did get into a fender bender, and if that incident got reported or not. Additionally, the public is not regularly informed when an employee resigns or is fired, but the public is informed of each new hire when that employee is presented to the City Council the night of a vote to hire them.

Recently, two employees of the administration resigned, which were announced during City Council Meetings: Beacon’s first HR Director, Gina Basile, who left after a year and seven months on the job, according to her LinkedIn, and the Mayor’s Assistant, Collin Milone.

Gina was tasked with reviewing the Highway Department’s work atmosphere, and found it to be troubled: “Beacon’s New HR Director Hears From City Employees About Discrimination, Inequality, Growing Tensions; Suggests Solutions; Begins With Highway Department.”

Shortly thereafter, a Diversity and Inclusions Statement was presented and passed in the City of Beacon, when then City Councilmember Air Nonken Rhodes stated: “This isn’t lip service.”

The City of Beacon has hosted at least 8 hearings against Reuben in 2021, which involve the city’s labor attorney and an arbitrator. During the 8th meeting, the City of Beacon actively closed the meeting to the media, by requesting that ALBB leave the call (ALBB was sent an invite to the hearing via Zoom by the arbitrator at Reuben’s request). The city attorney stated that the meeting was closed, and that Reuben had wanted it closed. Reuben denied that, stating that he wanted the hearings open to the public from the beginning, and then stated it again in an article on ALBB.

During this time, In 2021 alone, the City of Beacon under the direction of City Administrator Chris has made two transfers to cover unplanned costs from unrelated areas of the budget to another area of the budget called “Employee Discipline,” bringing that unbudgeted total to over $110,000.

Reuben was put on unpaid leave in January 2021 for a 30 day period, followed by a second 30 day unpaid leave period for disciplinary reasons. The City of Beacon has not made public what those disciplinary reasons are (though ALBB has seen the first stack of the vague charges), or why they have spent so much money for a willing and able Highway Department employee to not work for over a year, during a national labor shortage. During the summer of 2021, the City of Beacon could not completely fill the 6 Summer Jobs it seasonally fills to fill its department.

Main Street Not Getting Paved Despite Early Pulling Of Parklets From Restaurants

Last year in the Fall, diners at restaurants were eating in the newfangled “parklets,” which were the borders of bright orange Jersey barriers outside of restaurants. These barriers created a safe-ish space for people to eat outside of restaurants in parking spaces, thereby adding seating to a restaurant and an opportunity for restaurants to earn more money during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a virus passed primarily through the air, making outside spaces the safest. Last year, restaurants were getting crafty with what kind of heating units they were going to provide their patrons.

This year, Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White pulled the parklets in late September, citing scheduled milling and paving that was to be done on Main Street. Indeed, Beacon has been investing in infrastructure such as paved roads and seeking grants for new sidewalks for a number of years. Restaurant owners were already fearful of when the parklets were going to disappear, while some members of the community were bothered by the parklets for beauty reasons, and fear of car accidents, due to Beacon’s increasing reputation for speeding down Main Street, and any street around town.

Announced at the 11/1/2021 City Council Meeting, Main Street will indeed not get paved this year after all. City Administrator Chris stated: “The planned milling and paving of Main Street has been moved to next Spring. Because of all of the rain we have had recently, the contractors who are lined up to do the the milling and paving can't give us dates until late November, and then we run into the problem of getting into cold weather, in which the new striping won't set. Rather than rush it and not have the best job done, we will do April or early May.”

While the City Administrator said that the bump out project will be completed at South Avenue and Wolcott, it seems as though new cross-walk painting will not happen for the new location of bump-outs, which are the new side-walk extensions presumably for more accessible wheelchair use and pedestrian crossing. Currently, some of the new bump-out extensions do not match up with old cross-walks.

Some side-streets, such as South Chestnut Street, have been newly paved, with new bump-outs added. Several new bright yellow cross-walk signs have been added along Main Street as well, aiding in visual signals drivers get when zooming down the road.

City of Beacon Urges Reconsideration of Partial Matteawan Road Closure By Fishkill Correctional Facility

The week that the Beacon City School District announced to families that the part of Matteawan Road that passes through the Fishkill Correctional Facility after the Beacon High School, and intersects with Business Route 52 (at which point, it is called Prospect Street), would be closed to the public on November 1, 2021, the The City of Beacon’s Administrator Chris White announced at a public City Council Workshop Meeting (at 1:19:00) that the City strongly urged the Fishkill Correctional Facility to reconsider the partial road closure, to start a dialogue to form a better plan, and to support Assemblyman Jacobson’s efforts to allow school bus routes at the very least until solutions could be found.

According to Administrator Chris, the City of Beacon was first informed on October 18, 2021 by the Superintendent of the Fishkill Correctional Facility that the part of Matteawan Road passing the facility would be closed to the public on November 1, 2021. In response, Administrator Chris prepared a resolution of the City’s urging of a reconsideration.

The proposed resolution to be signed during tonight’s public City Council Meeting can be found here. Today, November 1, 2021, which is the start of the partial road closure to the public, Beacon City School’s Superintendent Landahl sent a notice to district families that buses will continue running through Mattweawan Road near the Fishkill Correctional Facility, but reminded families that that part of the road is closed to the public. There has been no announcement to Beacon residents of the road block via robo-call, text, or website posting, other than the mention of it during last week’s City Council Meeting.

In providing context for Beacon’s position on the closure, Administrator Chris stated:

“Mattawean Road runs through the City of Beacon and the Town of Fishkill. It goes past the Fishkill Correctional Facility. The Town owns a piece of the road near Prospect Street that feeds in. Then the prison owns a large part of it, and then the City owns the rest of it.

“We had heard rumors from the School District that the Fishkill Correctional Facility was going to close that road as of November 1st. We only received a call on October 18th, which was the first official notification that the City was given, that the road was going to be closed permanently in less than 2 weeks.

“We have been in touch with Superintendent and our state representatives. I know that Assemblyman Jacobson's office is working diligently to try to exempt buses which would be severely disrupted if that closed. We thought we would support - I put this together because I thought it important to support our state delegation's effort to delay the implementation of this so we can do some planning, to exempt buses at the very least, and to begin a real dialogue between the Town of Fishkill, Beacon City School District, and the City of Beacon.

“There has been no planning or traffic modeling to look at what the impacts were. I would say this strongly recognizes their right and their necessity to secure their facility. Nobody is questing that. The way that we do it, though, is important. We think we can thread that needle so that it's not as disruptive to the traffic going into Rombout and the High School.”

Covered In The Proposed Resolution

Included in the City of Beacon’s Resolution, spearheaded by Administrator Chris, is the point that, for years, “Matteawan Road serves as a connection between the Town of Fishkill and the City of Beacon and is an important street access from Fishkill Avenue to the Beacon High School and Rombout Middle School.” In response ALBB’s article announcing this partial road closure last week, former City Councilperson Ali T. Muhammad, who grew up walking to Beacon school in that area, recalled when that part of the road was temporarily closed: “Grew up there, sounds awful. Last time it was shut down was due to 9/11. Good luck.”

The resolution points out that the closure to the public is “during the daytime.” The resolution makes sure to state the City of Beacon’s dissatisfaction with not being consulted by the Fishkill Correctional Facility prior to their decision: “City of Beacon recognizes the necessity and right of DOCCS and the Fishkill Correctional Facility to secure their grounds, including this section of road, the City is concerned that it and other major stakeholders, including the Beacon City School District, were not consulted on the closure and received insufficient notice to allow for traffic safety modifications and adjustment that might need to be implemented as a result of the change to traffic patterns in and around Matteawan Road.”

The City of Beacon cited concern for where traffic would increase due to the partial closure of Mattawean Road, stating that it “would create traffic and pedestrian safety issues at key intersections in the City of Beacon, including Verplanck Avenue and Matteawan Road, Wilkes Street and Matteawan Road, and at access roads through Memorial Park, which now may be used as a cut-through for motorists.”

The resolution pointed out the effort required to properly answer the partial road closure: “Any adjustments to the traffic control signage in the area will take the City a period of at least several months to assess needed modification and adopt revisions to the City Code for such modifications, which require a public hearing and adoption of a local law amending the City Code, and the City received less than two weeks’ notice of the impending partial road closure without any prior traffic safety planning by the Facility or coordination with the City.”

The City of Beacon is asking for a pausing of the partial road closure, and a commitment to work together on solutions moving forward “with a immediate establishment of a working committee to coordinate with Fishkill Correctional Facility on this matter, including the following key stakeholders: the City of Beacon, Town Town of Fishkill, and Beacon City School District in order to consider potential alternatives, and if necessary, properly plan for the impact that a partial closure of Matteawan Road would create.

Beacon’s resolution would then be sent to Governor Kathy Hochul, State Senator Sue Serino, Assemblymember Jonathan Jacobson, DOCCS Acting Commissioner Anthony Annucci, and Fishkill Correctional Facility Superintendent Edward Burnett.

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Read This: Video Of The Drive On Matteawan Road Past Fishkill Correctional Facility That Is Partially Closed Now - The Experience >

Read This: Permanent Road Closure Of Matteawan Road At Fishkill Correctional Facility - Will Impact School Bus Routes >

Summary of the 9/13/2021 Beacon City Council Workshop Meeting :: Housing, Meeting Time Off, Etc.lea

The September 13, 2021 City Council Workshop agenda and video recording of the meeting have been added to A Little Beacon Blog’s Easy Access City Government section.

In short, a brief summary of some of the items discussed on the agenda is below. Click here for links to the agenda items for any digital resources linked to the topics discussed, as well as the video recording of the meeting.

Housing Initiative Prioritization + Parking

The City Council discussed Mayor Kyriacou’s Affordable Housing Proposals, lingering on the Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) component. The Mayor, who is a landlord who has owned several properties in Beacon, wants to see the right to have an Accessory Dwelling Unit be approved as of right for homeowners to build and rent out. An Accessory Dwelling Unit is like a giant garage/studio, that is a stand-alone structure built next to someone’s home, that can have water and electricity flowing to it. There are restrictions as to how far it needs to be from the house, and how large it can be.

***

Editorial Note 9/20/2021: The paragraph above originally included a line stating that Mayor Kyriacou “is married to a realtor,” which has since been deleted. Mayor Kyriacou submitted what can be taken as a correction during the City Council Meeting on 9/20/2021. While he did not email or phone in with this correction, as is standard with most publications, he included it after his public service announcements, leading with sarcasm: “I've been made aware that I am a bigamist, which I find interesting. My spouse of 30-some years is a professional and spent most of the last dozen years in higher education as a marketing and communication executive. The last 6 years at West Point, but before that at Fordham and at RPI. But apparently I have a second spouse who is a realtor. So, unbeknownst to me, I've been married twice. And I wanted to say, whoever you are out there, come say ‘Hi,’ and I'll learn a lot more. I could at least have some fun, right? Oh, and I learned that online, by the way.”

***

Currently, Beacon’s zoning laws make building Accessory Dwelling Units difficult. In general, ADUs have not been popular with the public - rather - the public who is motivated enough to attend public meetings to speak out against them. Including when homeowners want to build an ADU for in-laws or caregivers. The fear by some of the public is that the ADU will be used by developers and homeowners as rentals. Which seems to be the goal of affordable housing.

The Mayor’s proposal encourages small residential units and more cluster housing. City Administrator Chris White projected his vision of who Accessory Dwelling Units was intended for: couples and single people moving from New York City who do not need large homes, he said, and move to Beacon without cars. He referred to this concept for the ADUs as “workforce units,” and stated that he did not think homeowners would build luxury Accessory Dwelling Units, similar to the expensive apartments on Main Street. He assumed homeowners would use low or moderate grade materials to keep costs down. Which does not indicate what the homeowner may then charge for that unit.

Perhaps he has not seen the adorable tear-down renovation of the tired house with studio garage on Cross Street.

Parking Requirements Possibly Waved For Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)

Parking requirements for Accessory Dwelling Units is also under consideration to be waved. Parking requirements are the number of parking spaces a property owner must make available to tenants. Often, these requirements are used to stall a building project if street parking cannot be found.

Councilmember George Mansfield suggested that people are moving to Beacon without cars. City Administrator Chris stated his belief that generally, people moving to Beacon do not have cars, and therefore do not need parking spaces. Councilperson Air Nonken Rhodes suggested that people do buy cars after moving to Beacon in order to leave the bubble of Beacon for necessities, jobs and enjoyment.

City Administrator Chris stated that with people moving from New York City without cars, there is less of a need for parking. He stated that he feels that assuming someone would want to buy a car after moving to Beacon, and to park that car in one of the property’s parking spots that the building owner is required to offer, is a “social justice” issue, concluding that poor people do not want to own cars and absorb the burden of incurred expenses from car ownership, and instead can rely on existing public transportation as a better idea.

City Administrator Chris stated: “Where is the evidence that you need that level of parking that we require in our code? I felt like, as a planner, a lot of this was made up. 'You have this size unit, you need 2 cars or 3 cars.' There is no evidence that you necessarily need that. Also, just be aware that we have new technology and common solutions that we could implement. The new technologies...George rode here on an electric bike. We see the proliferation of micro-mobility through scooters. If you watch people whipping up Beekman from the train station, you'll see a lot of people are looking at these things as much cheaper than maintaining a car with insurance and repairs. Again, a social justice issue is that we shouldn't have to require every poor person to own a car to get around. The other part is the societal thing which is moving toward that micro-management where there is on-demand transit. The County seems to be moving in that direction, and I've talked to them about piloting something like that in Beacon. Because again, you have 5 square miles. It's a walkable, compact community. Particularly with the new e-bikes. It really makes it accessible to someone who never would have been able to ride a bike."

Councilmember Air reiterated: "The issue is getting out of town."

It should be noted that there is no requirement of a person living in a building or house to own a car, even if they have access to a parking spot from the building owner.

Additionally, for couples who move into these units, who start families and stay in these small dwellings because they cannot afford to buy larger homes, may eventually have kids old enough to go to soccer or ice-hockey practice. Getting the family to soccer practice in Beacon on an e-bike would be impossible, and getting the family to ice-hockey practice in Poughkeepsie would be very difficult on public transit.

No Discussion Of Families With Children

There was no discussion of families - parents with children - who have moved out of Beacon because they grew out of their small apartment or rental in a duplex, and cannot afford to buy a house in Beacon with a yard. Nor was it discussed how many families are living in cramped quarters in their current small apartments because they do not want to move out of Beacon, or move out of the Beacon City School District.

City Administrator Chris stated: “Now you see more people moving in who are single adults, empty nesters, younger people who maybe have a different...or are single or are just 2 people. We are building houses for these huge families...and I know I look a lot of the housing as someone who is single, and it doesn't fit. It would never fit. I don't need that much house. I think a lot of people think that way."

Several families have also left Beacon because they could not find a house to buy with several bedrooms with a yard in their price range.

Also not discussed was how many people of high and low incomes do buy cars after moving to Beacon from New York City. Leaving the bubble of New York City for any community outside of that island usually involves leaving the municipality for doctor appointments, different grocery shopping experiences, dining out in new locations, visiting family, going to the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, etc.

Some people who do not have cars hire taxis to get their children to school, to the public pool, to Girl Scouts. Some take the bus, however, getting children onto public transportation is work.

Recreation Needs Assessment Scoping

Parks and Recreation Director Mark Price was called to the meeting by City Administrator Chris to present Mark’s early vision of what the Recreation Study could look like. Now that the Recreation Department is done with the Kids Camp Program and the Public Pool Program, the City Administrator said that he felt that Recreation Director Mark had time to think about preparing the study.

In last year’s budget planning, where there was a groundswell of demands from the public for more money to be placed into the Recreation Department, which Recreation Director Mark voluntarily decreased. Mayor Kyriacou earmarked at least $50,000 for a Recreation Study to discover what people needed.

During this City Council Workshop, Councilmember Dan Aymar-Blair pointed out that he wanted to see the building of a new and larger Recreation Community Center be part of that study, and recalled that the budget earmarked two studies for $50,000, totalling $100,000: one for programs, and one for a building. He did not want to see the building left out.

Mayor Kyriacou and City Administrator Chris responded that they wanted to see programs first in order to see what kind of building to build. For instance, City Administrator Chris suggested that a theater program could happen in the Memorial Building, which has a stage and according to him, sits empty most of the time, he said.

It should be noted that the Memorial Building was dedicated to the Veterans, where Veterans are regularly requesting maintenance to it as it is in disrepair.

Councilperson Air Nonken Rhodes stressed their desire to see a space for “hanging out,” that is not structured with programming, but just is a place for kids to come hang out, in addition to programming going on around the space.

Hiring and Promoting City of Beacon Employees

In the hiring and promoting of City Employees, the Council has requested more information before they make hires, which they do by voting at public meetings. Spearheaded by Councilperson Jodi McCredo, who wants to see more information before the Council votes to hire people, she has made a suggestion to City Administrator Chris to see resumes before being presented with a candidate at public meetings. In past workshops, City Administrator Chris has responded to that concept that he did not want to “waste their time” with sending resumes, but could consider obliging.

It should be noted that the public is not regularly informed when city employees are terminated or quit, unless the position is in the the public eye, such as the City Administrator position last year, Police Chief, etc. Terminations or resignations of employees of Police Officers, Highway Department, Water Department, etc. are not regularly shared in public meetings or in Resolution documents that are uploaded to the internet. One usually needs to find out by submitting a FOIL request.

Proposed Amendment to 2021 City Council Meeting Schedule

Mayor Kyriacou would like to have less City Council meetings, similar to what was tried during the summer of 2021 when public City Council meetings were paired with Workshops where the public is not allowed to speak. The lighter summer schedule left some Monday nights open with no meetings scheduled.

Mayor Kyriacou consistently tells his constituents that he is a “part time” mayor while he is out chatting in the community, or even during his most recent testimony against the Damskammer plant, as reported by the Beacon Free Press.

City Administrator Chris referred to the preparation for weekly meetings as a “hamster wheel” that was a lot of work. Mayor Kyriacou positioned the proposed change of reduced meetings as not necessarily a reduction of meetings, but as a way to favor seasonally crowded meeting agendas, such as October’s budget season.

Councilperson Dan disagreed with the proposal, and cited that he saw this as a reduction in meeting times. Though he figured his kids would like to see him on Monday nights, Councilperson Dan felt it right to continue with the weekly meetings. Councilperson George Mansfield noted that while he has been attending the weekly meetings for 12 years, and would appreciate an open Monday, he also wanted to continue with regular meetings for consistency for the public.

The Council was not aligned with the Mayor’s vision of a reduction in meetings, so the Mayor suggested hiring an additional support person for the City Administrator, to which the Council agreed was a good idea.

Community Facilities Grant Applications

Movement has been made on the awarding of unused grant money that can be used to improve buildings owned or leased by non-profits or by building owners whose buildings have been designated historic, or are in the Historic District. The monies need to be used for permanent structures that cannot be removed. The first entities who look the most promising are the Beacon Historical Society for an accessible ramp, and the Howland Cultural Center for facade improvements.

The River Pool of Beacon did apply for money to help with this temporary pool that it sets up in the Hudson River each year, but the City Administrator said that the grant rules state that the structure needs to be permanent, but that he was happy to see them apply and had not considered an entity like that. Applications are still open for this financial opportunity.

Executive Session Items

Personnel and Contract Negotiations

Details on what is talked about during the Executive Session portion of the meeting are never revealed. Only the City Council members, Mayor, City Administrator, Attorney, and if anyone else was in the meeting have access to this knowledge.

Beacon City Council Considers Smoking Ban In Public Parks, As Marijuana Is Legalized (Tobacco Would Be Included In Ban)

As Beacon’s City Council considers its new obligation from New York State to respect marijuana smoking in public, the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA), a law passed after much delay prior to the racial reckoning of 2020 and into 2021), Beacon, along with all municipalities, is required to decide if it wants to opt out of retail sales tax revenue from Adult-Use Retail Dispensary stores (a store that sells cannabis that a person takes away from the store), or an On-Site Consumption Establishment (like a bar for alcohol that a person consumes on site and cannot take away). When signing the law, New York State declared that it became the “15th state to legalize cannabis with commitment to social equity.” So far, after the 6/14/2021 City Council Workshop meeting discussing the development, Beacon’s City Council is leaning in the direction of remaining opted-in to profiting from revenue from cannabis sales generated from within Beacon’s city limits.

Along with this retail choice, as presented in detail by Beacon’s retained law firm, Keane & Beane from attorney Drew Victoria Gamals, Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White brought to the Council the consideration of prohibiting smoking or vaping tobacco and marijuana in public parks to the Council, separate from the state-mandated retail decision. During the meeting, he said doing so was in the name of public health.

However, it should be noted, that in Keane and Beane’s Adult-Use Marijuana presentation, municipalities are able to “adopt regulations to allow the smoking of cannabis in locations where smoking tobacco is prohibited.” This option was not discussed during the Workshop where this topic was first breached.

New York’s lifting of the prohibition of marijuana smoking has brought new aromas to the city, which you may have noticed while walking down the sidewalk where bar patrons gather to smoke outside. Or someone driving in their car in front of you may be openly smoking cannabis while driving (which, according to Drew Victoria Gamils with Keane & Beane is not legal, nor is sitting in your car smoking cannabis while the car is off).

Is It The Aroma That Is Bothersome?

While it is a new aroma for some, it is making others uncomfortable. Yet one thing is known: the Black community is disproportionately penalized for even carrying cannabis, let alone smoking it, as was pointed out by Councilmember Air Nonken Rhodes during the presentation of the ban on smoking in Beacon’s public parks during the meeting.

City Administrator Chris White responded to Air’s concern by stating that “enforcement would need to be closely watched.” Which would require data collection and review of each citation. Something which Beacon’s City Council is new to acquiring in the aftermath of the spotlight on criminal justice. It is also not clear if the City Council or the City Administrator is in the habit of regularly reviewing the data that the City of Beacon Police Department collects.

During this City Council Workshop, City Administrator Chris White equated publicly smoking marijuana to smoking tobacco, as he brought to the council the consideration to ban it from public parks and “soccer games.” Chris stated that on Beacon’s trails, there is a ban on smoking, but he was unclear as to why that was, and not banned in parks. He wondered if it was because people are walking in a “linear” path. In his pursuit of a policy to be able to enforce, he expanded: “If you're way up in the woods, we are not going to see. However if you are at a soccer game, and not being respectful of others, I'm sure you are going to be reminded of that,” he stated, explaining that a person complaining to their fellow parent would have new legislation supporting their complaint to a person sitting next to them.

Not that soccer games need more opportunities for conflict among overly aggressive parents, who continuously need their own refereeing by the professional hired to ref the kids and enforce rules of the game in play.

(The no-smoking rule on trails could be for fire prevention, like that time when Breakneck caught on fire in 2020.)

Soccer Games and Smoking

Having been to many soccer games and practices, as well as those for flag football, I have not encountered folks smoking tobacco or cannabis. While that is a broad statement, people usually step away when smoking, out of respect for others. As for Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park, that area is so spacious and windy, most aromas don’t linger - unless it is the regular aroma of charcoal burning for burgers and hot dogs.

Meanwhile, New York State considers cannabis a potential thriving business that it can regulate and profit from, while encouraging agricultural involvement from traditionally oppressed groups. Expanding limitations on where it can be smoked is counter to that intent.

From New York’s new Office of Cannabis Management, the new law “Establishes a robust social and economic equity program to actively encourage members from communities disproportionally impacted by the policies of prohibition to participate in the new industry. … [It] encourages small business and farmers to participate in the cannabis industry with the creation of microbusiness, cooperative and delivery license types.”

Proposed Penalties For Smoking In Beacon’s Public Parks

A majority of Beacon’s City Council leaned toward accepting the sale of cannabis in Beacon, but banning smoking in public parks. The penalties, they agreed on, could be light. The financial penalty by default, City Attorney Drew said, has a maximum fine of $1,000 per day. City Attorney Drew confirmed that the penalty would be settled in Justice Court between the City and the Defendant. City Administrator Chris attempted assurance: “It’s usually much less than the maximum penalty.“

City Attorney Drew added: “If you go to trial, you could get $40,000. Working with the police and the defendant, you might end up settling for $9,000. That's a high example. You might end up settling for $500 in Justice Court.”

Councilmember Dan Aymar-Blair requested that the financial penalty be light, so as to not impact anyone’s rent. He and other Councilmembers agreed that jail time would be not ideal, and they would want to specifically exclude that penalty from Beacon’s legislation.

City Attorney Drew recommended that the City Council hear from residents before moving forward with drafting legislation on how to regulate the sale of cannabis in Beacon.

Beacon Chamber of Commerce Kicks Off Regular Business Call With City Administrator Chris White For Businesses To Call In

Starting Wednesday, June 2, 2021 at 8am, the Beacon Chamber of Commerce with Chamber President, Ron Iarossi (owner of Beacon Creamery) will host a Zoom call-in with Beacon’s City Administrator, Chris White. Said the Chamber in an email to members: “This will be the first of an ongoing monthly series. The meetings will be designed to update you on what’s happening in Beacon.” According to the Chamber, the first meeting will cover such items as parklets and upcoming TV and film projects. The Chamber encourages businesses to voice their opinions during the call.

City Administrator Chris announced the call during the May 24, 2021 City Council Meeting, where he mentioned the call as an opportunity to speak directly to businesses to get their feedback on future decisions made by the Council, such as allowing different events to come to town.

The City Administrator also mentioned wanting feedback on the growing number of film productions being filmed in Beacon. “Some of the businesses,” Chris recalled, “the last time we filmed, they loved it and made some money. Others weren't so happy.“

The City Administrator alluded to the Cupcake Festival as an example of an event he knew not to have. While some businesses like an art gallery were not happy for the large crowd, restaurants and some retail businesses did very well when the Cupcake Festival came to town, produced by Pamal Broadcasting, the home of K104.7. Beacon Bath and Bubble was one of the biggest critics of the event, but the day after it left town, the owner reversed her opinion after her sales yielded “Christmas numbers,” which means she sold a lot and was happy. Here is ALBB’s economic study of the festival on businesses.

Parking was a problem, and regular tourists and residents were not able to walk down a large section of Main Street as it was closed for the festival. Said K104.7 the year they did not return to Beacon and instead moved to Stormville: “We were hoping to come back to Beacon this year, but given the growing attendance and space/parking constraints, we had to look elsewhere. We’re looking forward to keeping it in the county and growing the festival in new and exciting ways.” One Beacon boutique, La Mere, followed the cupcakes to Stormville in her La Mere Mini trailor boutique on wheels, and had a good sales day.

The City Administrator Chris said during the 5/24/2021 City Council Meeting that he hopes to “activate” the parks, declaring his desire to start “activating the parks and have something cool going on,” as if the parks are underutilized and underenjoyed by locals, which they are not. They are treasured by locals. The City Administrator Chris continued: “The money is not the reason to do it. The reason is to bring people and businesses to Beacon. People think ‘Wow, I want to bring my business here.’”

The first event of the season post-pandemic in one of Beacon’s parks was a Makers Market hosted by Hops on Hudson. The event occupied part of the Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park, and required tickets to get in. While the City Administrator saying that Pete & Toshii Seeger Riverfront park was open to the public despite the large event, police were down by the entrance near the lily pads blocking the opening, under instruction when hired to provide event-duty. People wanting to enter the park needed to speak to the police officer to request permission to go beyond their blockade or state their intent. Police were directing traffic to parking areas from as far away as Beekman Street near the MTA Police barracks.

How To Join The Business Call

The business meeting will be on Zoom, and attendees can join by following this link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88241890659?pwd=bVNvd2d0TUt3dWJSQ0dJM3ljZStMUT09

Meeting ID: 882 4189 0659
Passcode: 031504
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City Administrator Chris White Refuses To Answer Questions From ALBB After Questions Confirming Employee Job Titles

After a series of articles highlighting hiring practices in the City of Beacon’s Water and Highway Departments, in March 2021, Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White declined to answer any questions from A Little Beacon Blog unless a face to face meeting was held. City Administrator White has also instructed all staff to not take questions sent via email or voice mail, including the Park and Recreation Director, Mark Price. The previous City Administrator Anthony Ruggiero continued to answer questions from ALBB, even when the questions were about employment and grew uncomfortable.

Beacon’s former Mayor Randy Casale, known for his brazen and outspoken style, told ALBB when asked if he ever declined to answer reporter’s questions: “Not during my administration unless the lawyer advised him because of litigation, but that would only be about that subject. I do not believe it wise if you want transparency!”

Later, when Mayor Kyriacou participated in a COVID-19 vaccination event, City Administrator Chris ignored questions seeking comment about the event, to encourage others to get vaccinated.

Chip Rowe, the Managing Editor of the Highlands Current, a leading newspaper in the region had this to say when asked by ALBB if having a standing no-comment policy from a local government administration was normal: “There have been politicians who said they won't talk to certain outlets, Obama did that to Fox for a while.”

When A Little Beacon Blog was researching disciplinary action taken by the City of Beacon on Highway Department employee Reuben Simmons, after he was put on paid leave the first time in January 2021, and was seeking confirmation of the unpaid leave from the Highway Department’s CSEA Union Representative, Paula Becker, I left two voicemails with Paula seeking confirmation of the unpaid leave status. At the time, I did not know that Paula was an employee with the City of Beacon in the Finance Department.

City Administrator Chris emailed me in response, saying: “I received notice from other staff that you had called regarding a personnel issue. As I mentioned previously, the City does not comment on personnel issues. I would appreciate you contacting me if you have questions in the future.”

Paula Becker is an employee of the City of Beacon, and the President of the CSEA for Beacon. That combination, in this case, has led to a conflict of interest for pursuing research for employment articles.

Reuben Simmons, the City of Beacon employee in the Highway Department on unpaid and paid leave, was also at one point the President of the CSEA for Beacon, and says he understands the pros and cons of having an employee be a Union President. While in that leadership position, he recalls how he as the president needed to advocate for employees, as well as give them answers they did not like.

To get the background on Reuben’s employment situation, listen to ALBB’s podcast with him here. The podcast also provides an employment and demotion timeline.

Below is City Administrator Chris’ email outlining his position. I declined to meet him for the conversation, as I do not think it necessary to outline or negotiate editorial standards with a governmental entity, or any subject a publication is reporting on. Other reporters may have chosen to meet, in order to warm a relationship. With three kids in Remote Learning at the time, and 3 jobs I hold down, this is not something I wanted to make time for. All I need are answers to simple questions, and those can be sent via email. It should also be noted, with regards to the “simple conversation” he referred to below, I had asked him these questions via email. The opportunity to clear anything up had already happened

Katie,

Thank you for your response. I am unable to respond to further questions until you and I have some discussion about journalistic standards for your articles. Since I replaced Anthony, I have tried to treat you as I would a news outlet, but I’m realizing that your blog does not operate in the same manner. I have to say that I also liked your blog’s focus on small businesses in Beacon so I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt in responding to you as time allowed.

The article that you just published on City hiring, which is referred to as a “hot mess,” certainly does not meet basic journalistic standards for unbiased reporting. If you would like the City to respond to you as we do with news media, we will need to establish some comparable reporting standards. With a simple conversation, we could have cleared up some of the inaccuracies and misleading assertions in this article, which is what the local papers would have done before publishing.

If you would like to have a conversation at some point to discuss this further, please let me know, and I will try to be available to you. However, until we can establish some sort of standards, I am not able to respond to further questions.

Best regards,

Chris

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"Severance" Films In Beacon's East End - Storefronts Are Dressed - Here's What We Know

If you were walking past your favorite cafe down on the East End of town near Mt. Beacon and saw that it was called something else, your heart may have skipped a beat as you thought: “Oh no! Not another business moving out!” But this time it’s not another business moving out! It’s a film production coming to town. Dressing the storefronts in costume for the Apple TV+ produced show “Severance.”

According to the Poughkeepie Journal: “Severance" is a drama featuring Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken and SUNY New Paltz graduate John Turturro. Ben Stiller is listed as an executive producer and director of several episodes. According to IMDb.com, the show is scheduled to premiere sometime this year.” As stated on IMDB, the premise is: “Lumen Industries, a company that's looking to take work-life balance to a new level.”

Beacon business owners in the area could not confirm or deny if filming was happening, but for those of us window browsing at night, onlookers were puzzled by the newly named storefronts, and were trying to piece together the mystery. Facebook was of course lighting up with speculation. Couples walking along the sidewalk stopped in front of storefronts to ask each other: “Wait, this vintage piece of furniture looks very similar to that piece of vintage furniture in that storefront over there….What is going on?” A person walking their dog really wanted to go inside of a shop, even though the shop was closed.

Storefronts who seem to be selected to be Main Street stars are Beacon Bath and Bubble, Reservoir, The Vault, 13 Floor Mod, Beacon Realty, Beacon Falls Cafe, La Mère Clothing and Goods, Raven Rose, and possibly others. No one would confirm, however, as they alluded to agreements that required disgression.

The boutique, for instance, that is normally called La Mère Clothing and Goods is now called The Midcentenarian. A Little Beacon Blog knows that owner April has not moved her business, as La Mère is an advertiser with A Little Beacon Blog, and we have a shopping date coming up!

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Photo Credits: Ruby Martin, a 10 year old photojournalist, taken during a Remote Learning day.

A Little Beacon Blog reached out to the City of Beacon for confirmation that film permits had been granted and paid to the City, however, City Administrator Chris White reminded us (me) that we are not on speaking terms based on last week’s employment articles that had racist undertones, and would not answer any questions.

A white Haddad truck, which is usually a sign of a big movie production nearby.
Photo Credit: Ruby Martin

Thankfully, a Citizen Reporter called in to the Mayor’s Office, and received confirmation that the production is “Severance,” a production from Apple TV+, and will be filming on Monday and Tuesday. Set dressers have visited storefronts who will be in the scene. April of Le Mere’s shop employee called her to suggest she might want to come in to see the new items in the store, after many antiques were deposited into the store. April had been tending to her three children and mother.

“My employee Facetimed me the situation, and I came in right away. You know me - the store has to be perfect, and all of these antiques were here in the front of the store.” We do know April quite well over the years, and could see that she was twitching. The evening we encountered her, she was pulling a late-nighter in order to make her shop presentable to the public in order for them to shop the weekend before the Monday shoot.

Courtney of Raven Rose says she is a huge fan of Adam Scott, and told A Little Beacon Blog she is very happy that the East End of town is getting this filming action.

The City of Beacon issued a robo-call on Friday evening, listing what street closures would be happening (see below for the street closure list). The City’s robo-call did not mention the film production or the purpose for the street closures. The coordination of rolling street closures may be due to the parking of large film production trucks from Haddad’s, a truck rental company that is used for several union productions in New York City and elsewhere, as well as camera positions for different takes of the scenes.

What We Know About The Scene Being Filmed

Earlier reporting from the Poughkeepsie Journal revealed that scouts had visited Beacon Bread Company and Hudson Valley Food Hall earlier in February 2021, which are storefronts on the other end of town.

We know that the producers are keeping this production very hush hush, that it is episodic, and may have a “futuristic mind-bending” kind of twist to its storyline. However, the set dressing of Beacon’s storefront windows for this upcoming week are set back in time. This particular scene may only be one minute in the episode.

Excellent reporting from Geoffrey WIlson in the Poughkeepsie Journal revealed that the production is currently going under a different name, “Tumwater," which is common in the early stages of filming in order to not attract attention. According to the article, some residents had received a letter from the Location Department: “The Location Department for ‘Severance’ listed 'Tumwater"‘ as the project's working title in its letter to Beacon residents.'“ The article went on to say: “Laurent Rejto, director of the Hudson Valley Film Commission, confirmed that a project titled "Tumwater" is starting filming in the City of Kingston Wednesday, and that project was filming at the Rondout Friday.”

According to the resident letter, the production will be filming in Beacon late into the night, with cameras positioned on the rooftop of the 1 East Main Street building in order to take night shots of a couple walking on Main Street down below. 1 East Main houses lofts, Lambs Hill Bridal, Urban Links Design, and Trax Coffee.

According to locals on the ground, the scene filmed on Monday and Tuesday will be a “walk-and-talk.” According to an anonymous source, the “script is awesome” and may have “a futuristic, mind-bending” element to it. Which is interesting, since the storefronts in Beacon are currently set decorated to have a much older look from the past.

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Photo Credit: Charlie Martin

Street Closures:

Sometimes during a big production, there are members of the film crew called Production Assistants (PAs) who will close a street or sidewalk, and tell you to not cross the street just now. We do not know if there will be PAs closing the streets, or if Beacon Police officers will be closing the streets.

For those interested in the City’s income on this, usually when Police Officers are used to close the streets and direct traffic for film jobs, they are paid by the production company. Usaully the officers used are off-duty, so an Overtime Rate is paid. Additionally, the City is paid a day-rate for a union-produced show permit. A Little Beacon Blog reached out to the City of Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White to inquire as to the game-plan and income stream, but he did not respond.

If you, Citizen Reporter, get the answer on what was paid to Beacon, let us know! We are also inquiring via our other sources re the details of the City’s contract.

According to the City of Beacon’s robo-call, parking and street closures will be impacted as follows:

The following streets will be closed and parking will not be allowed on Monday, March 15th from 3pm - 7am Tuesday morning. And from Tuesday March 16th from 3pm - 7am Wednesday morning.

Municipal Parking Lot on Churchill Street
North Street from Main Street to Locust Place
South Street from Main Street to Locust Place
Leonard Street from Amity Street to East Main Street
Verplanck Avenue from Davis Street to Main Street
Churchill Street from Main Street to Spring Valley Street where there will be local traffic only

On Monday March 15th there will be rolling closures, and parking will be allowed on the following streets:

Russell Avenue
Spring Street
Locust Place
Falconer Street
Boyce Street
Grove Street
Liberty Street

On Monday, March 15th from 3pm - 7am Main Street from Tioronda Avenue to Ackerman Street will be closed and parking will not be allowed.

On Tuesday, March 16th from 3pm- 7am Main Street from Teller Avenue to Ackerman Street will be closed and parking will not be allowed.

Have fun, everyone! High fives to the participating businesses.

Black Highway Department Employee & Community Organizer Put On 30-Day Unpaid Leave Since January 2021

This is the notice to the public that Beacon’s City Council will be going into a private meeting called Executive Session, after the public meeting, to discuss “Personnel.” They don’t divulge which city employee it is they are talking about. So we don’t know for sure if they will be talking about Reuben on Monday. It is notable that Reuben’s employment “hearing” after his 30-day unpaid leave was Friday, March 5, 2020. He has not returned to work, as the unpaid leave letter stated that he would not until after the hearing.

Related Links:

• Black Highway Department Employee & Community Organizer Put On 30-Day Unpaid Leave Since January 2021

• "Wait, What Is That?" Episode 5: Reuben Simmons And His One-Time Job Position As Highway Superintendent
  Hear it from Reuben himself, the summer before he was put on 30-Day Unpaid Leave

• Beacon’s New HR Director Hears From City Employees About Discrimination, Inequality, Growing Tensions; Suggests Solutions; Begins With Highway Department

• These 2 Black Beaconites Describe Being Ignored When Applying For Recent Water Department Or City Jobs

• "Beacon's Water Department Is A Completely Caucasian Department... Some Of Their [Highway Department Employees’] Behaviors Are Questionable"

• During Hot Mess Of Water Department Hires, Beacon Passes Diversity and Inclusion Statement

• Beacon Gets New City Administrator Chris White - Taking A Moment To Look Back At Past Administrator Actions

• Why Black Lives Matter (BLM) Signs In Storefront Windows Still Matter In 2021

During the winter of the pandemic.
During Black History Month.
During the traditional and budgeted-for overtime season for the Highway Department where all of the employees are in trucks day and night, plowing Beacon out, and the employees earn extra money.
During a time when Beacon’s first official Diversity and Inclusion Mission Statement got signed into law.
During the presentation given by Beacon’s first ever HR director stating that she is hearing about “discrimination, inequality, and growing tensions” in Beacon’s Highway Department.

Beacon’s new City Administrator, Chris White, in his first days on the job after he finished training with former City Administrator Anthony Ruggiero, put a Black employee on unpaid leave for 30 days in January into February, after that employee declined to resign, and declined to sign a document saying that Beacon could fire him at any time for any reason, but wouldn’t give a reason, according to that employee, Reuben Simmons.

“Civil Service” Jobs - An Employment Chess Game

Designation of an Unpaid Leave of 30 Days comes with a letter. And a packet of complaints, which fulfill an obligation of finding satisfactory grievances for a “Civil Service” job to get rid of someone. These jobs exist within a city or town. Civil Service guidelines are the rules that govern how it’s all going to work. Like a game of chess. We learned a little (OK, a lot) about this when Reuben spoke about it on a podcast the summer of 2020.

Reuben at the time was speaking about how his job title of Highway Superintendent dissolved in 2018. Disappeared. Into dust. He went back down to Maintenence Worker because Dutchess County told the City of Beacon that the job title didn’t exist for Beacon - after Reuben had been promoted by others into the job. But how or why or when did Dutchess County know that? After then-City Administrator Anthony Ruggiero recommended Reuben? And after Mayor (at the time) Randy Casale, who referred to himself as “Highway Superintendent for 16 years” every chance he got, also recommended Reuben?

Beacon’s “Highway Superintendent,” which - according to why he got the job that replaced someone else and made their job title dissolve - should be titled “Superintendent of Streets.” This word choice is what dissolved former Highway Superintendent Reuben Simmons’ job in 2018.

A technicality was triggered. Which is what made Reuben’s co-worker, Michael Manzi, get promoted to the job title that Dutchess County said was accurate for Beacon: Superintendent of Streets. This simple word change (with at least one more job qualification that came with it), dissolved Reuben’s position of Highway Superintendent. To be replaced by Michael Manzi as Superintendent of Streets. There was a lot of hooting and hollering by the Highway Department the night of the vote on Michael’s promotion back in 2019. Reuben wasn’t even demoted. His position just dissolved into Maintenance Worker. All legal. See minute 50:17 of the Beacon City Council video.

But even today, March 6, 2021, Michael Manzi is still identified as Highway Superintendent, not the job title with which he allegedly checkmated Reuben. This isn’t the only job title inconsistency on the City of Beacon’s website: See “During Hot Mess Of Water Department Hires, Beacon Passes Diversity and Inclusion Statement.” But the City of Beacon currently won’t comment on it.

Former Mayor Randy Casale spoke about this job situation also on a podcast. Off-mic, Randy called Reuben’s then-demotion the “biggest regret” of his mayoral career, because he couldn’t stop it. But he tried. Issues of Civil Service, run by Dutchess County, can be triggered by anyone who wants to switch up how a job hire or promotion is going to go, and can make a job disappear. Legally.

But that demotion was in 2018. The 30-day unpaid leave comes in 2021.

The Only Reason ALBB Knows About The 30-Day Unpaid Leave -
The City of Beacon Won’t Comment

When people are hired or promoted, there is a public vote on it by City Council. When they are put on unpaid leave, or perhaps fired or asked to resign, there is nothing public. In fact, police officers who were recently hired, fired or resigned are only traceable because of a public inquiry via a FOIL (freedom of information law) request. That link is offered here on the City Clerk page, but has not been updated since the mayor promised it would, in August of 2020.

How did I find out about Reuben’s $0 income? And how he’s looking at a career loss at the end of it?

He called me. After the first mega blizzard dumped 2.5 feet of snow on Beacon, I answered the phone and right away thanked my friend Reuben Simmons for keeping Beacon plowed. In every City Council meeting, councilmembers had been thanking the Highway Department for plowing.

Reuben had been part of the team driving the trucks clearing the streets for years. This January was another year where he would have been out in the early morning into night, earning overtime that is part of Beacon’s annual budget each year. The overtime is not a surprise. The employees count on it. And they plan for surplus salt, trying to estimate how the winter is going to go.

“I’m sorry, Katie,” Reuben responded to my appreciation. “I haven’t been in the trucks. I have been put on unpaid leave since mid-January 2021. I am embarrassed and I don’t know what is going to happen.”

This isn’t the start of Reuben’s story. His story started years ago. This is the current step.

30-Day Unpaid Leave - How That Works

In the letter sentencing Reuben’s 30-Day Unpaid Leave, City Administrator Chris White instructed Reuben to not speak to any staff of the City of Beacon, or touch any property of the City of Beacon, during work time.

Reuben, who served as the department’s CSEA Union President from 2009 to 2017, had been organizing employees - those who would listen to him, anyway, since not all of them liked him. Especially those who he gave low marks to when he was CSEA Union President, like the employee who allegedly casually brought in a gun to the workplace 6 months after Reuben filed a harassment complaint against him for circulating an unsanctioned petition against Reuben to keep him off a negotiation committee for a contract, or those who didn’t like him being their boss. And then they became his boss when his job title conveniently dissolved.

Reuben’s organizing efforts included supporting the 2 other Black employees. Contract negotiations were happening for their salaries. He wanted all employees to know about their rights, and think about their best interests. Employees of the Highway Department have been without a new contract for some time. The City of Beacon links to one from 2015. According to Reuben, the employee health insurance payments have increased, and with the rising cost of rents and property taxes, people are not earning enough to keep up.

Verifying Reuben’s 30-Day Unpaid Leave - Stonewalled

To begin researching the story, I sought verification from the City of Beacon. I emailed City Administrator Chris White. Chris replied: “We do not comment on personnel matters.”

I then pursued the CSEA Union President, Paula Becker. Not being able to find her anywhere on the internet, and not realizing that she was a City of Beacon employee, I called her number and left a voicemail. And again the next day. The day after that, I received the following email from Chris: “I received notice from other staff that you had called regarding a personnel issue. As I mentioned previously, the City does not comment on personnel issues. I would appreciate you contacting me if you have questions in the future.”

Respecting his original request, I hadn’t contacted any staff. His response got me thinking that someone was impersonating me. I didn’t realize that Paula’s phone number extension was one digit different from Chris’, and that the CSEA Union President was a staff member of the City of Beacon. Did that yield fair representation or advocacy?

Union President As City Of Beacon Employee - Helpful or Fair?

Reuben was used to the dual role of staff and union president. He used to be the CSEA Union President as a Highway Department employee, before he was Highway Superintendent. “I was comfortable with it because I was a strong individual. Some people are not fine with it because the employer can give them certain benefits. Makes it an uncomfortable and tough situation. I was comfortable with having those battles,” Reuben reflected. '“It depends on your character and your personality. Paula, I believe, has a great heart, and wants to see the good in everybody. That's not necessarily the characteristics that sometimes you need, to be tough and fight back face-to-face.”

Verification Gained - ALBB Sees The Unpaid Leave Letter & Complaint Log

To publish this story, I felt better seeing the letter outlining the unpaid leave. I believed Reuben, but I wanted to see the letter and see how it was worded. I wanted to see the complaints behind the disciplinary action. The first response from anyone I verbally tell this story to is: “Well, what did he do? He must have deserved it.” Reuben maintained his answer: “I don’t know.”

“But did they show you a list of complaints?” I pressed.

“Yes, but they don’t say exactly what I did,” Reuben explained. “For example: I ‘drove out of City limits in a company vehicle.’ But I went to Glenham. But Glenham is outside of City limits if I have to service it. If I drive over the I-84 bridge to turn around in the Hudson View apartments to turn back to Beacon, I’m outside of City limits.”

Eventually, Reuben trusted me and showed me the letter. It said exactly what he said it said. Behind the letter was a thick stack of papers. “What are these?” I asked.

“The complaints,” he answered. He was reluctant to let me see them. We chatted some more, and I asked again if I could see them. “What could be so bad that I cannot see them? Is there something unimaginable?” I rattled off some unimaginable things. Surprised, he smiled and said “No,” and his hesitation disappeared. I turned the page to start looking through the stack of complaints. The stack of paper was thick, about half an inch.

These complaints started in the summer of 2020. They weren’t the first against Reuben in his life. He’s already been through another set in 2019, which you can read about here. The summer of 2020 was the same time that Reuben began speaking out at Black Lives Matter speaking events at Pete & Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park about his long history of working in the Highway Department, and racially charged and unfair treatment he has seen, experienced, and been told about while working there.

The complaints read as rows and rows of almost the same words on different line items of dates that said something vague like:

“On July 23*, 2020, Reuben Simmons was at the intersection of South Avenue and Main Street fixing a sign, and did not complete his work.”

“On July 23*, 2020, Reuben Simmons returned late from lunch.”

Copy/Paste those two complaints, change the dates and the intersections, and multiply by 50. Many, many rows of the same repeated. And then finally, a different complaint:

“On September 12*, 2020, Reuben Simmons…” and it was something about how he used a certain number of his Personal hours within a 4-hour period in a way that did not fit compliance.

*The number of this exact date has been estimated. I didn’t take a screenshot. But these were the months.

The worst complaint was a vehicle accident at the transfer station where he hit a civilian car with a company truck. OK. People have accidents. I’ve turned around several times in the transfer station, and it is tight. Question is: Have other employees who have also had accidents in company vehicles been disciplined with a 30-day unpaid leave? We wouldn’t know, because the City of Beacon won’t comment on personnel matters. And they may not answer all FOIL requests. None of mine, at least. And none of them, if answered, have been published since August 2020, as Mayor Kyriacou promised.

So what happened? The accident itself was reported as a complaint. Reuben was supposed to call his supervisor to report an accident, which he did. But the next complaint was that Reuben used curse words to his supervisor during that conversation.

“Curse words?” I asked? Reuben answered: “Yes. I used curse words about the situation in response to what my supervisor was saying. Not calling my supervisor any curse word directly. But speaking about the situation.”

Having a potty-mouth myself, I asked Reuben: “Does no one use curse words in the Highway Department?”

“They use them all the time. Worse. They use racial slurs,” he said matter-of-factly.

Next Step: A “Hearing.” With Witnesses Called By The City Of Beacon

After Reuben refused to resign or sign the letter saying that Beacon could fire him at any time for any reason, he had the option of having a “hearing.” At that hearing, the City of Beacon told him that they were bringing witnesses.

According to Reuben, the list of witness names were not given to his attorney, William T. Burke.

Ironically, back in the day when Reuben filed a harassment complaint about the unsanctioned petition, that the City of Beacon via City Administrator Anthony Ruggiero did not pursue because of lack of physical evidence of the paper petition, the City of Beacon did not care about witnesses. Reuben said he had 2 witnesses: the 2 Black employees who were eventually shown the unsanctioned petition. And Paula, the current union president who allegedly had the unsanctioned petition show up on her desk (perhaps how like Councilperson Jodi McCredo had a mystery letter show up on her front porch, putting her in a very awkward position), which then allegedly disappeared. None of these witnesses mattered for that hearing.

But on March 5, 2021, in a hearing to further detail complaints made against Reuben, the witnesses mattered. What’s that people say about All Lives Matter?

How Long Has Reuben Worked For The City Of Beacon?

Reuben has worked for the City of Beacon Highway Department since 2002, starting as “Summer Help.” His resume goes like this: City of Beacon Summer Help in parks, 2002-2008; Laborer, 2008-2012; Union President for City of Beacon CSEA Local 814 unit 6662, 2009-2017; Maintenance Worker, 2012-2017; Highway Superintendent, 2017-2018; Maintenance Worker, May 2018-August 2019; Working Supervisor, August 2018-March 2020; Maintenance Worker, March 2020-present.

After the summer of 2020 rush of complaints, the City presented Reuben with the opportunity to resign. When he declined, they offered him a letter that he could sign saying that they could fire him for any reason. He asked what that reason could be, and they would not specify. So it easily could have been: “Reuben was at the intersection of Liberty and East Main fixing a sign and did not complete his work.”

He declined to sign these. As he said he did years ago when the City presented him with a letter stating that there were no “racial tensions” in the Highway Department.

“Why Would This Be Happening To You?”

The obvious question is: “Why is this happening to you?” Due in part to Reuben’s role as union president for those years, he may have made people upset. Recently, however, the public has started speaking out, beginning with Stefon Seward, a founding member of Beacon4Black Lives who spoke out on a City Council call during the public comment period, resulting in this deep dive by ALBB to learn new information.

Reuben concluded: "I try to exhaust all internal avenues and best efforts to avoid the situation I am in today, and the City ignored all of that (see past article for reference). Maybe I'm the best person to be in this. I'm embarrassed to be in this. I'm ashamed of the City. In my 19-year career here. It's disturbing and disgusting. Beacon is better than this."

What is at stake if Reuben is fired or resigns? “My career will be cut short and I will lose the opportunity to receive my full retirement potential.”

How ALBB Knows Reuben

Unfortunately, in hearing stories of Black lives, or maybe any life, it comes down to who you know, and why you know it. I first got to know Reuben in 2019 when he got the idea to organize Beacon’s live music event, Rock Out 4 Mental Health, the first music event to bring mental health services throughout the Hudson Valley together in one place set to music, so that the community could easily meet them and get to know these services better. Reuben wanted to de-stigmatize mental health.

I didn’t know at the time that his good friend had died of substance abuse. I heard that friend’s story from his mother, who spoke at the event that June. In attendance at the event were Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro, who is a huge advocate for mental health, and state senator Sue Serino, whose brother died by suicide.

Reuben’s nonprofit organization, I Am Beacon, asked me to be on the planning committee for Rock Out 4 Mental Health. I don’t say yes to many things because of time, but I said yes to this immediately. Reuben ran every planning meeting that we had in my old office on Main Street every other Tuesday. I brought my toddler. Reuben ran in one morning in his bright yellow Beacon Highway Department sweatshirt, to give us notes and direction for the meeting. Reuben says he got personal time approved through Payroll, then attended the meeting. He said he saw his boss, Michael Manzi, that morning. They waved to each other, but then 2 months later Reuben was written up about the attendance of that meeting as a form of discipline, which Reuben says he later disputed.

That morning, he got written up by his supervisor, Highway Department Superintendent of Streets Michael Manzi, for being late. The complaint went into Reuben’s personnel file. If you have heard the podcast about it, you’ll know that it was during this event planning experience that I learned that Reuben was no longer the Highway Department Superintendent. You’ll remember that when I went to write the article about the event, I visited his LinkedIn to get his proper job title. LinkedIn said he was Maintenance Worker.

I asked Reuben about it, thinking nothing of the question. “Hey Reuben - what’s your job title? I see something different in LinkedIn.” He answered that he couldn’t talk to me about it. Couldn’t answer the question. Was going through some things at work legally, but maybe he could tell me later.

Later came one year later during the Black Lives Matter movement. We were going to have the Rock Out 4 Mental Health event again, and were going to ask the City, which had a new Mayor in place, if we could use Riverfront Park again. The former Mayor Randy Casale and Reuben had been close. They argued in public - both having loud voices coming from passionate places - but they were tight.

Randy Casale was part of why Reuben was promoted to Highway Superintendent. Not long after, however, Reuben’s job title of Highway Superintendent dissolved. Turned to dust. Never existed. He was demoted but there was nothing to demote him from. He just was Maintenance Worker again. Why? That doesn’t make sense, right? Right. Two words of how it happened: “Civil Service.”

The pandemic hit, and all events paused. Except Black Lives Matter marches. Or protests in the name of Black Lives Mattering more than the status quo. Whichever you want to call it. Whichever brand you feel comfortable saying, as people tried to chip away at the original meaning of BLM. Which was that Black people were dying, being fired, being ignored, and having to work extra hard to sustain success they made for themselves. Because of white people keeping them down. You. Me. All of us. Systems in general. “All lives” were keeping them down in the name of comfort. That feeling you get when you feel discomfort, so you turn your eyes away and feel comfortable again in your own little world.

Reuben attended a protest march and took to the microphone at Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park, and for the first time, in a shaky but strong voice, told his story. Even prior to his taking the microphone, there had been tensions between Reuben and the Highway Department. Complaints had already been written about him.

City Cuts Off ALBB From Responding To Questions

Since ALBB published the article, “During Hot Mess Of Water Department Hires, Beacon Passes Diversity and Inclusion Statement,” Beacon’s City Administrator Chris White has refused to answer any questions from this publication. Our door remains open. We will continue to send questions on this and other totally different matters. Even if we send them into the abyss and only hear crickets back.

City Administrator Chris White asked for a FaceTime-type call to get to know each other, since I keep emailing him questions. I email questions to lots of people. To the office of Dutchess County, or to business owners. No one else has requested a video chat to get to know each other better. I get it. I’m a people person too. I like to meet people. But in the media sense, it’s not necessary.

Chris’ final words, for now, to this publication are below. These are very similar to when Mayor Kyriacou responded to one of my questions asking him if he really said something that I had heard. Mayor’s Kyriacou’s response was to give me the definition of hearsay. Hearsay is when you don’t seek confirmation after you hear about what someone may have said. I’m not sure what it’s called when someone doesn’t answer the question but gives you a run-around, condescending, derogatory response.

For the record: Chris seems to do very great work. I am looking forward to his work in project management that he will do in the name of the natural environment. In the name of personnel matters, the experience thus far has been surprising. Perhaps that will change some day.

Until that time, while the City stonewalls any questions about treatment of employees by its employees and its employers, A Little Beacon Blog will continue to receive stories from residents of the community, and will continue to listen to them with compassion. If these stories line up with other stories, and begin matching and forming a pattern, those stories will continue to get published.

some physical proof cannot be seen in words. Slinging racial slurs will never have proof. Unless they are recorded, as with much, much worse happenings like with Rodney King or George Floyd. No one is free from racist behavior. Every day, every single one of us must keep ourselves in check. We must educate ourselves; reach out to make new friends and deeper friendships, to keep ourselves in check.

This treatment of a friend is nothing I would have expected from the City of Beacon. But this story is not new. It’s just not told in a public way.

Below is the current City Administrator Chris White’s last response to me. My response to him follows. Again. I think Chris is very talented. Anthony Ruggiero is very talented too, and I’m so bummed that he resigned. As the City of Beacon has stated: “We have work to do.” Anyone, in any position they are in now, can do better, and shift moves made in their past.

---

3/4/2021
In response to an invitation to speak on Zoom to get to know each other, which I declined.

Katie,

Thank you for your response. I am unable to respond to further questions until you and I have some discussion about journalistic standards for your articles. Since I replaced Anthony, I have tried to treat you as I would a news outlet, but I’m realizing that your blog does not operate in the same manner. I have to say that I also liked your blog’s focus on small businesses in Beacon so I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt in responding to you as time allowed.

The article that you just published on City hiring, which is referred to as a “hot mess,” certainly does not meet basic journalistic standards for unbiased reporting. If you would like the City to respond to you as we do with news media, we will need to establish some comparable reporting standards. With a simple conversation, we could have cleared up some of the inaccuracies and misleading assertions in this article, which is what the local papers would have done before publishing.

If you would like to have a conversation at some point to discuss this further, please let me know, and I will try to be available to you. However, until we can establish some sort of standards, I am not able to respond to further questions.

Best regards,

Chris

---

3/4/2021 Response:
Hi Chris,

I understand where you are coming from.

I do not know about other news outlets having conversations with administrations about how those administrations are covered, but having that discussion is not something I would need to have in order to get accurate information for a story, or try to at least. Informing about known or unknown information is what I would do.

Oftentimes, when a positive adjective is used, people are happy. When an unflattering one is used, the word “unbiased” gets returned.

As for coverage of businesses in Beacon, thank you. However, there may be times when local government decisions are unfavorable to business, or a certain businesses, and you may then not like that coverage, or that article.

Any reporter is biased, as a human. Only so many words and topics can get covered because of time and space (paper and digital), so by the very nature of publishing, every piece of content produced is biased.

With a simple email response, you can always shed light on inaccuracies if there are items that need corrected.

As a local paper would have done before publishing, I did try to get answers from you, in order to get as much accuracy as possible. Which you would not give. And now are stating will continue to not give any unless we have a conversation.

Thank you for your consideration in time in responding prior. We are all busy.

Thank you for the rest of the work that you do. There is a lot on your plate.

Best,
Katie

###

This article is not just for Reuben. As torturous as this is to watch. This is for all of the other Black employees who have been ignored by the City of Beacon, or squashed down into dissolved positions.

The people involved in that - are probably some of the best people. Some of the best friends. Families who your family may have had play dates with. This is your check. My check. Everyone’s check. The check of all people’s lives.

Stories resulting from past articles on this are already coming from people who have been ignored on repeat. Most likely, this will extend into the Hispanic, Arab, Jamaican, Everyone community. Get comfortable with people who sound different than you. Are louder than you. Move differently than you.

Maybe you could shake it up and move differently too! Let your own passion out! Without shaming someone when they do it.

Beacon’s New HR Director Hears From City Employees About Discrimination, Inequality, Growing Tensions; Suggests Solutions; Begins With Highway Department

Related Links:

• Black Highway Department Employee & Community Organizer Put On 30-Day Unpaid Leave Since January 2021

• "Wait, What Is That?" Episode 5: Reuben Simmons And His One-Time Job Position As Highway Superintendent
  Hear it from Reuben himself, the summer before he was put on 30-Day Unpaid Leave

• Beacon’s New HR Director Hears From City Employees About Discrimination, Inequality, Growing Tensions; Suggests Solutions; Begins With Highway Department

• These 2 Black Beaconites Describe Being Ignored When Applying For Recent Water Department Or City Jobs

• "Beacon's Water Department Is A Completely Caucasian Department... Some Of Their [Highway Department Employees’] Behaviors Are Questionable"

• During Hot Mess Of Water Department Hires, Beacon Passes Diversity and Inclusion Statement

• Beacon Gets New City Administrator Chris White - Taking A Moment To Look Back At Past Administrator Actions

• Why Black Lives Matter (BLM) Signs In Storefront Windows Still Matter In 2021

During the December 14, 2020, City Council workshop meeting, Beacon’s new HR Director Gina Basile, who was hired in July 2020, gave a presentation about “many discussions with our employees about how they feel about working for the City.” She also met with community group Beacon4Black Lives. After holding a Meet and Greet with all department heads individually, she scheduled a Meet and Greet with the Fire Department, which needed to be rescheduled due to COVID-19-related issues. Gina held a Meet and Greet with the Highway Department, which is where she began her focus to discover overall themes employees experience when working for the City.

Gina started by presenting her first 4 months as HR Director (hired in July, presented findings in December), according to Gina’s presentation, which she delivered in-person during the City Council Meeting held over video conference, several themes emerged, including:

• “Concerns surrounding diversity and equality.”

• “Concerns regarding our Hiring Practices.”

• “Growing Tensions in the Workplace.”

• “Lack of clarity in intra-departmental policies and inconsistency.”

“I have heard employee concerns about discrimination, inequality, and growing tensions,” Gina stated in her printed presentation. “We need to address these issues head-on, and policies and procedures are only the beginning. We need a long-term plan on how to address these issues.”

ALBB has reported on some of these issues here.

She recruited the assistance of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider The Work Place, a work-based intervention program designed to identify and assist employees in resolving personal problems. She called for “a third, neutral party to help us develop a plan on how we move forward.” They assigned 4 of the EAP counselors to assist the City of Beacon, and stated that “based on need, we began with the Highway Department.”

“Needs Assessment Counselors met virtually with all Highway Department employees one-on-one to ask questions about working for the City of Beacon, their Work Environment, and to hear any concerns they want to bring forward. The virtual meetings were held in the conference room in the Highway Department, and I was present in the building so employees knew their confidentiality is maintained,” Gina said.

After the meeting, “the Counselors presented us with Overall Themes that they heard from our employees. They did not tell us what a specific employee said.” From there, a plan has been developed, which includes recommended group and individual training, as well as suggestions on how to improve the City of Beacon’s work environment. EAP recommended and will provide individual counseling, as well as recommended development of policies and procedures. EAP “provided us tools on how to handle issues as they arise,” Gina continued in her presentation.

In conclusion, Gina said that EAP “will guide future group and individual conversations that may be difficult, and uncomfortable at times, but are necessary. We acknowledge that this will take time, and this is something that is going to take commitment and a lot of work.”

Steps To Address The Concerns

Gina presented a plan for how to address the concerns, which include:

• “Diversity and Inclusion Statement” (this was completed soon after, on October 5, 2020, during a night that included confusion about new hires in the Water Department, and reported on here by ALBB)

• “New Hiring Procedures”

• “Standardizing the Promotion Process”

• “Diversity and Inclusion Certification Program”

• “Diversity and Inclusion Training for ALL Employees”

• “Multi-Year Plan”

• “Open-Door Policy/Investigate All Concerns”

• “Streamlining Policies and Procedures throughout the City”

• “Third-Party Involvement”

• “Open, Community-Based Chief of Police Search Committee”

In terms of next steps, Gina outlined that they “would review the findings of the needs assessment … and discuss the kind of improvements we will be making.” She indicated that she wanted “everyone to be a part of the process and part of the solution.” She then thanked the Highway employees "for taking part in this process, and helping us identify issues, and develop a plan to move forward.”

A Step Signed Off On By City Administrator

One of the next action steps, signed by City Administrator Chris White, soon after his own first day on the job, was to place a longtime Highway Department employee, Reuben Simmons, who is mixed race and identifies as Black, on unpaid leave beginning in January 2021 for 30 days. January is also overtime season for the Highway Department, where they are out plowing and salting city streets during winter storms.

Reuben has been outspoken in complaints about behavior in the Highway Department (listen to his podcast with ALBB here from the summer of 2020), both as an employee and during his time as a Union President advocating for fellow employees during contract negotiations. Reuben told ALBB that he declined an opportunity to resign, or to sign a document that he would agree to be fired for any reason, without that reason being stated or indicated in advance, he told ALBB.

He opted instead for a hearing, during which the City of Beacon will reportedly present witnesses, to further clarify details of a stack of complaints that include dates and general areas of topics but no specific details that ALBB has seen.

The hearing for Reuben’s employment is today, Friday, March 5, 2021 at 10am. The hearing was scheduled to be in City Hall in an office in the basement, but has been moved to be on Zoom. The hearing is not open to the public. Reuben was told that the city will be presenting witnesses, but did not provide a list of those witnesses, or what details they would be expanding upon.