BLOOMINGBURG – Desperate to get out of an expensive lawsuit in federal court brought by ten Hasidic residents of Bloomingburg charging that they had been denied the right to vote on discriminatory, anti-Semitic terms, Sullivan County has settled.

As part of the settlement, the Sullivan County Board of Elections will be monitored for the next five years by the federal government, county-wide, with the monitor reviewing any questionnaire given to people who are challenged over their voter registration to be certain that it complies with state election law and does not "impose an unnecessary burden on the constitutional right to vote."

The settlement of the federal case further requires Yiddish translation at all polling places, and that the county pay $550,000 in legal fees and $25,000 to be split between the ten Hasidic plaintiffs. The county's insurance company will cover the payments according to a resolution in the county legislature that was approved 7-1. The holdout no vote came from Cathy Owens, who represents the Mamakating area and is also the wife of Mamakating Town Supervisor, Bill Herrmann.

The suit followed an incident last March when twenty-seven Hasidim who wished to vote in Bloomingburg's village board election were disqualified on the grounds that they had not been able to prove actual residence in Bloomingburg in time for voter registration. That election resulted in a close victory for Aaron Rabiner, a new resident of the village.

Last month, the Sullivan County Attorney determined that one of the Board of Elections two commissioners, Ann Prusinski, required separate counsel before settlement negotiations could be entered. Document discovery revealed evidence of close cooperation between Prusinski and members of the Rural Community Coalition, which the plaintiffs claimed as "an activist group opposed to the influx of Hasidic Jews" into the area, including encouragement of RCC members to challenge the election petitions of a Rabiner.

Meanwhile, the Town of Mamakating has filed to appeal the dismissal of a racketeering lawsuit filed against developer Shalom Lamm and local developers and officials, all involved in the planning approvals process for the controversial Chestnut Ridge development. The original suit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest last September "with prejudice." Forrest cited the four year statute of limitations on RICO cases (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) among her reasons for doing so.

Announcing the appeal effort, Mamakating supervisor Bill Herrmann said, "Sometimes people get things wrong." He noted that the voter fraud allegations in the town's lawsuit refer to events from 2014-15.

Last summer Judge Forrest also refused to dismiss a $25 million lawsuit filed by the developer, Shalom Lamm, against the Village of Bloomingburg and the Town of Mamakating which alleges intentional discrimination against Hasidic Jews. She wrote that the village trustees "were motivated by discriminatory animus" when they passed a moratorium on all new construction in the village. That case, known as Jewish Education Center v. Village of Bloomingburg, currently has a trial date set for September 6.

Yet another lawsuit was filed on December 31, this time against the Town of Mamakating Zoning Board of Appeals by the same development team, Shalom Lamm and Kenneth Nakdimen. This suit involves an apartment complex, Hickory Court, which consists of three multi-family buildings set back from Main Street in Bloomingburg in a cul-de-sac. Lamm and Nakdimen's firm, Sullivan Farms, bought the property two years ago.

Hickory Court was originally approved, earlier this millenium, as housing for seniors and physically-handicapped people and is identified in the tax code. After Sullivan Farms bought the property, the firm paid some of the residents to leave after which several ultra-Orthodox Jewish families moved in. The issue for the village is that since these families had people of all ages, not physically disabled, they were allegedly there in contravention of the site plan approval. The building inspector told the developers they had to get an amended site plan approved for these changes and on December 8, 2015, the ZBA ruled against the property owners and declared that the apartment buildings were in violation by allowing non-seniors and non-disabled people to move in.

Sullivan Farms' lawsuit against the ZBA alleges that people other than seniors or disabled lived in Hickory Court before it was purchased and that the town is acting in a discriminatory way because the newcomers are Hasidic. The village has no sure way of knowing whether non-seniors lived there, but argues that this is beside the point; an amended site plan application is all they are requiring from the developer since it's their contention that an apartment complex with families in residence requires amenities such as sufficient parking spaces, and perhaps playgrounds and play areas. The village attorney insists that no discrimination is involved, just obedience to the planning and zoning rules.

Since the census of 2010, which showed the village to have a population of 420, things in Bloomingburg have changed. At least one hundred Hasidim have now moved into the village and many more are likely to follow as the townhomes of the Chestnut Ridge development are sold. That development, permitted at 396 townhomes, has so far seen four townhomes completed.

This past week, Bloomingburg's mayor Frank Gerardi and village trustee James Johnson filed their paperwork to run for re-election in March. Both will run again on the Rural Heritage ticket, an independent party that was built on its opposition to the new development.

"I think we're going to face the same voter fraud that the Sullivan Board of Elections backed off of," Johnson said in a newspaper interview this week.

The village had 293 registered voters as of February 2, with the last day to register March 4 and next Tuesday, February 9, as the last day to file a petition to run for two of the Bloomingburg governing board's three positions.