Butterfield Lawsuit Filed Against Cold Spring Mayor, Village
With the Village of Cold Spring election less than a week away, Butterfield project developer Paul Guillaro threw a bomb into the mix when he filed a federal lawsuit against the village and current Mayor Dave Merandy claiming village officials sabotaged the redevelopment at the direction of Merandy.
Guillaro filed the complaint in federal court, accusing Merandy of putting together a “malicious and intentional campaign of harassment, usurpation of authority, and other unlawful actions” to “maliciously stop, delay, frustrate, and ultimately ‘kill’” Guillaro’s mixed-use development in Cold Spring that includes a new senior center rented by Putnam County.
The damages are for $2.5 million.
The lawsuit alleges Merandy on multiple occasions after taking office in April 2015 said he wanted to kill the project and bankrupt Guillaro, including one
time stating “we can’t stop the municipal buildings from being built but the other buildings on the site plan you can count that I am going to block them.”
Merandy, in an interview, emphatically denied all wrongdoing and said the timing of the lawsuit appears to be “more than just a coincidence.” The lawsuit was filed on March 15 and the next day, Alison Anthoine, who is challenging the mayor in this year’s March 21 election, brought up the lawsuit at a village board meeting.
“I think you’d have to be a fool to believe that was a coincidence,” Merandy said. “I don’t think it’s a very far stretch to say (the lawsuit) was used to influence the election and cast a shadow on anything my administration has done.”
Merandy said neither he nor the village has actually been served the lawsuit as of Monday afternoon. He maintained he and the village have done everything legally advised by attorneys and the lawsuit claims are meritless and baseless. He questioned if the legal action would ever actually go forward and was certain it wouldn’t if Anthoine, a Butterfield supporter, wins.
Anthoine, in an interview, said she expected the legal action once the 90 days connected to the Dec. 5 notice of claim expired. She started looking for the lawsuit each day online until she discovered it last week and scoffed at the notion she’s in cahoots with Guillaro.
Anthoine also stressed she and Guillaro have never spoken about the lawsuit.
“He’s not going to call me for any help,” she said. “I’m not in his camp.”
If elected, Anthoine said she would want to negotiate an end to the lawsuit, but wouldn’t commit to either settling the lawsuit or going forward without further information. She believes just telling Guillaro the building department would follow the law would satisfy him.
The complaint alleges several instances that signaled Merandy wanted to either slow down or stop the project, all while hitting Guillaro with exceeding costs.
In the summer of 2015, former planning board member Barney Molloy told Guillaro that Merandy, current planning board chairman Matt Francisco and others currently or formerly involved with village government would do “whatever it took” to create issues for the project.
The lawsuit also claims Merandy told the village’s director of public works and building inspector that neither could not take action concerning the project without Merandy’s permission.
“A fact personally confirmed to (Guillaro) by the director of public works and building inspector,” the lawsuit states.
But Merandy said that is “totally untrue” and he’s never told anyone to slow or stop the project by not issuing permits. Merandy even went so far as to say if this case ever goes to trial, the people named in the claim would perjure themselves if they repeated that claim.
Merandy said a lot of the complaint was filled with heresy and seemed “put together rather quickly.” Merandy emphatically stressed he never said he wanted to slow down or stop the project or run up costs to hurt Guillaro financially.
The lawsuit never attributes who overheard Merandy talk about slowing the project down.
The lawsuit also alleges when Guillaro swapped the use of Building Two and the Lahey Pavilion, it was a minor modification and Merandy instead delayed the building permit by nine months because he demanded an amendment to the site plan.
In a past interview, Francisco, the planning chair, argued Guillaro was the cause of the delay by not providing the village with all the information it needed promptly during that stretch. The senior center lease for the Lahey Pavilion the village required from Guillaro was part of the approved modification agreement, yet wasn’t given to the planning board until this month, Francisco said recently.
“If (Guillaro is) changing stuff and it hasn’t been approved than it is our right and my responsibility to review that,” Merandy said of the Building Two and Lahey change. “He doesn’t seem to agree with that or like that.”
The lawsuit also details other complaints against Merandy, including that he fired all consultants and brought new ones on that forced Guillaro to shell out more money so they caught up to speed, and Connecticut firms were hired to drive up travel costs that Guillaro had to foot the bill for. Village attorney at the time, William Florence, was told by Merandy to alter his bills to force Guillaro to pay more, the lawsuit claims, which Merandy denied.
The lawsuit accuses Merandy of making false claims about the lease Guillaro had with the county. Merandy said the county was overpaying Guillaro to rent space on the Butterfield campus during county Legislature meetings, but Guillaro said in the lawsuit he’s charging the county half the market rate and if the county reneged on the agreement, it would have caused further problems for the Butterfield site.
“The motives and actions of (Merandy) are not rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest,” the lawsuit states.
