Ramapo supervisor and Suffern mayor at odds

RAMAPO - A rift appears to be growing between Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence and Suffern Mayor John Keegan.

It revealed itself last week in St. Lawrence's criticism of Keegan for considering a sale of village water to United Water New York.

Keegan noted other matters that he thinks have put him in St. Lawrence's doghouse.

For one thing, the mayor wasn't thrilled that a clock the town installed with the village's permission broadcasts a greeting from St. Lawrence. Keegan has asked Ramapo to remove the recording.
"This is Ramapo Supervisor Christopher P. St. Lawrence wishing you a lovely day," the talking clock announces just a moment after the hour on mornings, afternoons and early evenings.

Ramapo's clock was installed last year. It's a 20-foot-tall, four-sided shining black beauty that cost the town's taxpayers nearly $30,000. It sits in a vest-pocket park on the southeast corner of the Orange Avenue intersection.

St. Lawrence said the town has installed seven clocks as part of a beautification campaign. He said he taped the recording for the Suffern clock because it was an available option.

"I kept it short, 2.8 seconds," St. Lawrence said.

The clock also plays short renditions of music.

St. Lawrence emphasized that he liked Keegan. His criticism of the potential water sale, St. Lawrence said, was not meant as an attack on the mayor.

Then St. Lawrence later suggested that Keegan wished to discourage Hispanics from being in the village.

"He called Elaine Silverberg (a St. Lawrence assistant) and said he didn't want Hispanic music played because he didn't want Hispanics to feel welcome in the village," St. Lawrence said.

"That's baloney," Keegan said, when called later. "I didn't say anything like that."

Keegan suggested that a reporter call Gail Curtin, the village's recreation director, who he said had handled Suffern's requests regarding the clock.

Curtin, contacted at home, said she couldn't say anything without having the paperwork, which she said was in her office.

Another potential sore point with St. Lawrence, Keegan said, was that the village had reduced town revenue last week when Suffern decided to have its own building and fire inspectors instead of part-time ones from the town.

During the past five years, the town got $685,236 for the services, Keegan said, mostly from a fee-splitting arrangement.

Village Treasurer Thomas Zordan expected Suffern would save about $70,000 annually, even after paying $65,000 for its two inspectors.

Keegan said he upset St. Lawrence because "I dumped his building inspector and his fire inspector."

St. Lawrence said the loss of town revenue didn't bother him.

"We were glad to help them," he said, "and if they need our help in the future we'll be there to help them again."

Keegan was still smarting yesterday from what he saw as a tongue lashing from St. Lawrence on local television and radio.

"We're only researching this thing," Keegan said of the water sale. "We haven't agreed to anything, and as mayor it's my responsibility to research ways to get out of a $630,000 (Water Department) deficit without raising rates that could go up as high as 26 percent."

Suffern could receive as much as $200,000 annually for providing water daily a few months of the year.

It seemed to Keegan that St. Lawrence should keep out of village affairs.

"I take offense at the way he did it," Keegan said. "There he was for about 15 minutes ripping me up."

St. Lawrence saw it differently.

"I'm not attacking the mayor," St. Lawrence said. "I'm attacking Suffern selling its water. I think it's bad public policy."

St. Lawrence said he was merely informing viewers of the Suffern Board of Trustees' March 10 meeting, when the water-sale issue will be open to public discussion.

A week earlier, on March 3, St. Lawrence will host his own meeting on the potential sale. That will be at 7 p.m. at the Ramapo Senior Center on Route 202 in Montebello, just outside Suffern.

"The public's invited," St. Lawrence said, "and I'll be sending an invitation to the mayor and village board."

(JN Tom Walsh)