Yorktown Officials Defend Ties to Grace Amid Criticism

Michael Grace is a familiar figure at Yorktown Town Hall.

Since ending his six-year run as town supervisor in 2017, Grace, whose law offices on Underhill Avenue are directly across from Town Hall, has represented several clients appearing before the Town Board and Planning Board.

Grace represented Competitive Carting when in October 2022 it was awarded a five-year contract to be the town’s garbage hauler. Nine months later, the Town Board replaced Competitive Carting after problems arose with garbage collection.

In September 2022, the Town Board voted to amend the town’s zoning code to allow for the construction of boutique hotels in certain business corridors. That decision paved the way for a boutique-style hotel planned for the corner of Veterans Road and Commerce Street to move forward in the planning process.

Hotel Gardena, represented by Grace, was approved by the Planning Board in July 2023. It has yet to be built and the property is now up for sale.

More recently, developer Charles Diven, and his attorney, Grace, have requested Navajo Fields be added to the Lake Osceola Overlay District. The property is currently zoned for single-family homes on two-acre lots. Diven is looking to build 254 units, a 23,000-square-foot athletic structure and 4,000 square feet of retail space, along with expanding the existing ballfields.

The Lake Osceola Overlay District, approved in 2021, allows mixed-use developments with more than double the density permitted in the town’s current multifamily zones.

In exchange for being included in the district, Diven is offering to construct a sewer trunk line from the property along East Main Street to Hill Boulevard where it would connect to an existing line that hooks up with Westchester County’s sewage treatment plant in Peekskill.

“This is a major opportunity for the town to address an area that has been a dilemma for decades,” Grace has argued before the Planning Board and Town Board. “It puts in place infrastructure that is necessary to revitalize the area.”

During a Sept. 3 Town Board meeting, Joanne Sillik, a Jefferson Village resident, maintained the proposal for Navajo Fields was neither suitable for the Overlay District nor was part of the town’s Master Plan. She also mentioned Grace’s involvement in the process.

“I keep hearing if Michael Grace is involved in a project, it’s a done deal,” Sillik remarked. “I sincerely hope this is not true.”

At the meeting, Supervisor Ed Lachterman responded to Sillik’s comments, saying, “Anyone in this room has the right to hire whatever representation they would like. Whether I know an attorney, like an attorney or don’t like an attorney, I do not look at that in a decision. It’s what’s right for the town.”

Yet Lachterman (who has been on the board since 2016) has used Grace for personal matters – most notably in a personal injury lawsuit against the Greenburgh Graham Union Free School District.

According to legal papers filed in state Supreme Court, Lachterman, and his wife, Carol, filed a lawsuit on June 19, 2019, to recover monetary damages for injuries he allegedly sustained on July 25, 2018, while attempting to break up a brawl between two high school students while he was providing food services to the district.

During a recent interview with Examiner Media, Lachterman said one of the girls in the altercation grabbed a weapon and he was trying to prevent her from using it.

“I wasn’t going to let these kids kill each other,” he explained. “The school district didn’t have proper manpower.”

In the lawsuit and in the interview with Examiner Media, Lachterman claimed he was seriously and permanently injured in the incident, resulting in surgeries and mental anguish.

“The last five or six years have been rough. My life has totally changed,” he said. “I was angry, tired and depressed. I was only getting two hours of sleep a night.”

Grace has been one of Lachterman’s lawyers in the proceedings for the last five years. On Mar. 6, 2024, a representative of the New York State Insurance Fund issued a letter to Grace stating Lachterman has been paid $238,104.25 in workers’ compensation benefits for lost earnings and $9,933.19 in medical benefits to date.

A virtual Status Conference on the case is tentatively scheduled for this Thursday.

“My case is not the greatest case in the world. Michael (Grace) has gotten it very far so far,” Lachterman said. “This may go nowhere. My injury has nothing to do with him. I have not paid him a dime. He doesn’t get paid unless (I win).”

Lachterman also revealed that Grace prepared the wills for him and his wife.

“I’m friends with him,” Lachterman said. “I’m friends with half the people that come before us (the town board).”

He called any suggestions that he should refrain from any matters before the board involving Grace as “absolutely ridiculous.”

“I think it’s a stretch by people who are trying to make an issue when there’s not an issue,” Lachterman said. “I think it’s disgusting.”

Yorktown Democratic Committee Chairperson Jann Mirchandani, who lost to Lachterman in a special election in April, maintained Lachterman’s lack of transparency with the public was one reason she ran against the former councilman, who at the time was functioning as acting supervisor following the sudden death of former Supervisor Thomas Diana.

“We expect elected officials to do the right thing. Unfortunately, we don’t see that,” Mirchandani said. “It’s one of the reasons I ran. There are a number of cases like that. It’s really an issue.”

Newly-elected Councilwoman Susan Siegel, also a Democrat, agreed with Mirchandani.

“There should be no question that a Town Board member, and all town officials, should recuse themselves when they have or had a personal or business relationship with a person or business appearing before them,” Siegel stated. “The recusal should be in writing; it should explain the reason for the recusal and the town official should leave the room while the issue is being discussed.”

According to the town’s Ethics Code, “No Town official or employee may participate in any decision or take any official action with respect to any matter requiring the exercise of discretion, including discussing the matter and voting on it, when he or she knows or has reason to know that the action could confer a direct financial or material benefit on himself or herself, a family member, or any private organization in which he or she is deemed to have an interest…”

Lachterman is not the only board member with ties to Grace.

For the last four years, Councilwoman Luciana Haughwout has rented space in the Grace Building for her Connecting Wellness Center business.

Haughwout said she has publicly advertised where her business is located. She said having her office there, instead of in her home, following the COVID-19 pandemic, has proved beneficial in her elected role when she can simply walk across the street to Town Hall.

She also stressed her tenant-landlord relationship with Grace has not affected her views of any dealings he has before the Town Board.

“I don’t owe anyone anything,” Haughwout said. “There’s no favoritism. I always do what is best for the town.”

Several attempts to reach Grace at his office and on his cell phone were unsuccessful.