Wednesday, August 20, 2014

ANOTHER ILLEGAL STRUCTURE ON THE GOUVEIA PROPERTY

Welcome to Everything Croton, a collection of all things Croton -- our history, our homes, our issues, our businesses, our schools -- in short, EVERYTHING CROTON.

In a 7/24/14 Gazette letter from Croton United's Joel Gingold detailing Trustee Gallelli's assertions that she "had no knowledge of what Something Good in the World (SGW) was doing on the Gouveia property and what SGW’s plans were"--despite over 70 pages of emails obtained pursuant to a freedom of information request that clearly showed otherwise--Mr. Gingold also mentioned that what appeared to be a chicken coop had already been constructed on the property. 

You can read Mr. Gingold's letter and see the documents obtained through "FOIL" here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/croton-united/croton-united-member-joel-gingolds-letter-to-the-editor-july-24-2014/327495467407491 

The chicken coop--or whatever this structure is--click on the photo taken from the highway--is not shown on the engineer's survey of buildings on the site. In fact, it is one of many illegal structures currently on the property--almost all of which were ordered to be removed going back approximately two plus years ago.  Residents have repeatedly discussed this with the board at televised meetings, audiotaped work sessions, and in countless letters to the editor.

Despite all this, the illegal structures are still there, although the trailer may have finally been removed. After reading Mr. Gingold's letter and reviewing the documents obtained through foil detailing the activities of Mr. Wiegman and Ms. Gallelli, you can form your own opinion as to why.  

On August 17th, after patiently waiting for the village to investigate this latest illegal structure on the Gouveia property, photographs of the "chicken coop" were sent to the board and the village manager, along with a freedom of information request for any copies of the necessary paperwork, permits, any possible variances, etc. that you and I would have to  apply for. 

Let it suffice to say that it was only in the face of these photos and the freedom of information request that accompanied them, that the following verbatim response, with a copy to the entire board, was received from the village manager on 8/18: 

"Thank you for your email and photos regarding structures on the Gouveia property.  Not sure what the structure are for, but the Village will be ordering to be taken down or have the property owner apply for a zoning variance.   The Village has no record of an application being filed to build such structure. Representatives of the Gouveia Estate and Something good in the world will be contacted accordingly." 

Should the village finally enforce the code violations at the Gouveia property--and it appears it has yet to do so--it will only be because residents have had to repeatedly beg their officials to take action. It's indicative of only one of many problems we face with this board as a community.

If you feel that this is not the kind of village government you deserve, you do have a choice in November.

For more about Croton United's candidates--Anderson, Brijeski and Calcutti, visit their FB page today: https://www.facebook.com/crotonunited
or their website at http://www.crotonunited.org/ 

Incidentally, members of the village board still claim that they have not decided what to do with the Gouveia property despite the 70 plus pages of emails between Something Good, Ms. Gallelli and Mayor Wiegman going back for quite some time (in addition, it has now been almost 6 weeks waiting for an additional freedom of information response on this subject). The village is currently advertising for people to join an "ad hoc" committee to advise it on "what to do" with the property "should" they decide to accept it. You can form your own judgment as to the validity of that committee in the face of the documents obtained through freedom of information thus far.

----------Updated  http://everythingcroton.blogspot.com/2014/08/follow-up-new-illegal-structure-on.html

4 comments:

  1. This has been up for a while. Thanks for following up though it never seems to make a difference until you get loud!

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  2. And we have no idea whether any Gouveia "heirs" (are there children, step children, siblings, etc.?) will want to go through with a transaction that was seemingly not fully completed. That's another whole part of the puzzle I imagine.

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