Wal-Mart Scoped In Monsey

It's always refreshing when people who are charged with taking care of the public interest actually take their responsibility seriously. Such is the case with Mr. Sylvain Klein, chair of the Ramapo Town Board.

As we commented yesterday the draft scoping document for the proposed left a lot to be desired when it came to socio-economic as well as traffic impacts. We had a long chat with the chairman and he promised that he would try to include this missing data analysis in the scope. Later that evening he lived up to his promise and the scope was amended to include the business impact in Monsey and Spring Valley. In addition, Saturday was added as a peak traffic day at our suggestion.

All of which doesn't mean that the RTB will do the right thing in this matter. Much work needs to be done before we can say that the powers-that-be are paying attention. This was the concern expressed by someone commenting on last nights meeting (see yesterday's post). The poster feels that "St Lawrence...has already made his deal and is screwing the rest of us..."

We understand all the cynicism but we're not willing to throw in the towel by any means. We've been in fights where the key elected official actually brought the developer to the area yet was forced, when the community sentiment was passionately expressed, to side with his constituents. That is the gaunlet that we face here.

We are, however, not without allies. So far Legislator Fried and Spring Valley village attorney Bruce Levine (running for the legislature) are solidly in our camp and we're reaching out to all of the others as well. Our town meeting will be held in July and we expect that, once the public gets a better idea of what this project means, the opposition will become a crescendo.