הייס: באנדא'ס פריוואטע נקמה אינ'ם מעיאר

Cohan fire site at center of court battle

By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
cmckenna@th-record.com

Woodbury – A historic property hit with a second suspicious fire in less than a year is part of 74 acres of mostly vacant land that three Kiryas Joel men – including the mayor – have been fighting over in court since 1995.
The 17-acre parcel, once a summer estate belonging to "Yankee Doodle Dandy" composer George M. Cohan and his family, is one of four adjacent properties just outside Kiryas Joel that have been contested during the nine-year battle.
In the most recent skirmish, Kiryas Joel Mayor Abraham Wieder filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in November against Jacob Banda and Abraham Schwartz, two Kiryas Joel residents with competing ownership claims. The wrangling for land that could someday be a valuable addition to Kiryas Joel has also played out in rabbinical court, where most disagreements within the ultra-Orthodox community are first adjudicated.
Property records show that Banda's wife, Goldie, has been the official owner of Sunny Croft – the former Cohan estate on Bakertown Road – and three adjacent parcels in Woodbury and Monroe since April 2002.
No one involved in the dispute could be reached for comment yesterday. Kiryas Joel, a community of 15,000 Satmar Hasidic Jews, has essentially shut down for the eight-day Passover holiday, which began at sundown Monday. On Sept. 6, a suspicious fire destroyed what was once the main Cohan house. Seven months later, on Tuesday, another mysterious blaze ripped through two more dilapidated buildings and a shed, leaving a field of blackened rubble and twisted metal.
Although there were no serious injuries, this week's fire carried a serious cost in man-hours, equipment and water.
Dozens of firefighters from 11 fire companies battled the wind-whipped blaze, which set off numerous brush fires and endangered two nearby homes. Some firefighters remained at the scene until 9:30 p.m. – 7 ½ hours after they first arrived.
The fire also required the services of state troopers, state police investigators, Orange County fire investigators, workers from Orange and Rockland Utilities and an environmental cleanup crew. Woodbury fire Chief Edward Smith said yesterday that trucks made multiple trips to retrieve Woodbury municipal water, with each trip drawing about 20,000 gallons. The fire and blowing embers destroyed some Woodbury fire equipment, including 650 feet of hose and two nozzles, Smith said. Ten buildings remain standing at Sunny Croft, most of them abandoned summer bungalows built after the Cohan family sold the property around 1951.
Woodbury Building Inspector Gary Thomasberger said yesterday that he ordered Banda and Schwartz to tear down all of the structures after the September fire and they asked for a 60-day extension.
"They told me it was in rabbinical court and they were trying to finish it up," he said.
Thomasberger also said that he happened to bump into Banda last week and at that chance meeting, Banda had suggested the fire department might be interested in burning the buildings to practice fighting fires.
Thomasaberger said he told Banda, "Maybe they would be, but you'd have to get all kinds of permits to do it."

So what?

The Alliance is above it all! They know all the right phrases to accuse others of doing wrong but they don't have to listen.

This letter, if it did anything, just proved that Banda deserves to be on the Alliance ticket!