County Supreme Court upholds Monroe’s rejection of Seven Springs petition

The Orange County Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit brought by the Village of Seven Springs petitioners, determining that the proceeding is moot based on recent amendments to the NYS Village Law, and based on deficiencies in the petition identified by Monroe Town Supervisor Anthony Cardone when he rejected the Seven Springs Incorporation Petition.

Last year, Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law legislation aimed at making it harder for groups to establish villages within town municipalities. The new law increased the population threshold of a new territory from 500 to 1,500. The proposed area for Seven Springs had just under 600 inhabitants at the time.

Cardone’s assessment of the petition had also found that the boundaries the petition marked for its proposed village were insufficient based on legal requirements. Cardone said at the time that the application instead relied mostly on tax lot lines and certain tax lot numbers that reportedly did not exist in the town of Monroe, “preventing the town from determining the extent and location of the proposed village.”

Orange County Supreme Court Judge Sandra Sciortino, in her ruling, also rejected a claim against the Cardone, determining that he acted properly in rejecting the village petition for failing to utilize the legally required method for describing proposed village boundaries.

In a press release announcing the decision, Cardone said, “I am pleased that the court has upheld the actions of the town in this matter and confirmed the authority of a town supervisor to reject a facially deficient village incorporation petition. This village incorporation petition was plainly deficient on its face and the Seven Springs petitioners’ prolonged litigation was nothing more than a house of cards doomed to failure.”

Town attorney Brian Nugent of Feerick Nugent MacCartney, PLLC, added, “The court’s decision was on point in determining that the Seven Springs claims were without merit.”