Recently, the Village of Spring Valley has brought a lawsuit against the Town of Ramapo for the “sin” of building dozens of affordable housing units near Twin Lane in Spring Valley. The lawsuit was brought by the Mayor and the Village Attorney, Bruce Levine, the person who is running against Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence in the upcoming primaries.

A few thoughts came to mind following the lawsuit:

• As reported in a local newspaper, the lawsuit was brought to court without the Village Board considering it and/or without the board voting on it, which is against the standard regulation. This shows that Levine, the person who needs to uphold the law, has little respect for it.

• Considering that the lawsuit was brought against a development that will benefit the poor, one might wonder where Levine stands on affordable housing in general. The issue at hand could have been discussed or resolved outside the walls of the courts, but Levine’s actions have caused the whole project the be halted pending a court decision, despite the fact that the need for affordable housing is great, and its construction is a good boost for the local economy.

• In the past few y-e-a-r-s, the village has failed to move fast on the Union Road Project. Those who live in the area and/or those who must use Union Road on a daily basis, know exactly what a pain the construction project is. Had the village done its work correctly, the project would have been under village authority from the first minute rather than all local governments taking and throwing responsibility of it to one another, while the drivers and neighbors are paying the price. Instead of fighting the town on the Twin Project, the village should fight the worker’s unions and local firms to get moving on the Union Road project and get it done once and for all.

• It is astonishing how the Village Attorney running on a “pro-environment” party line has done nothing to make sure that the Union Road project gets concluded. Because the road is closed, motorists must drive around onto Stonehouse, Francis, and Morris, repeatedly slowing and accelerating, thus producing pollution which harms our young kids and environment in general (in addition to prolonging the response time of emergency personal who use Union as a main corridor to get through Spring Valley). One would hope that Preserve Ramapo will do its best to make sure that the environmental-negative Union Project gets done as soon possible.