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Bitter Exchange Between Chair Howard Phillips And County Legislator Lon Hofstein Focuses On “Excessive” Spending
By Tina Traster
Rockland Green on Tuesday approved an $18 million bond issue to cover the costs of the $3.5 million purchase of an empty built-on-spec warehouse in Jan. 2024 and a $14.7 million construction contract to convert the window-less warehouse into an animal shelter in a remote section of the Village of West Haverstraw.
The former Solid Waste Management Authority, which commandeered animal management in 2022, has awarded O’Connor Company, a Pinehurst, North Carolina firm, a contract to build out the 15,000 square-foot warehouse shell into a bilevel 28,000 square foot animal shelter at 427 Beach Road. The largely unpublicized announcement was made on Tuesday at a 5 p.m. meeting in Clarkstown Town Hall. Rockland Green usually meets on the third Thursdays monthly.
Clark Lowe, CEO of O’Connor, on Wednesday told a reporter he had not yet been informed that his company won the contract.
“This is good news for a Wednesday morning,” he said.
O’Connor, which was the second lowest bidder – and $90,000 higher than the lowest – has an extensive building portfolio including projects in Newburgh and Saratoga Springs. The firm, which is establishing an outpost in Goshen, has never built an animal shelter. Rockland Green misrepresented the square foot cost for the shelter at $527 per square foot; the true cost when adding in the acquisition of the warehouse is $665 per square foot.
O’Connor is currently building a 37,000 square foot recreation center in Newburgh for $12 million, and renovating various buildings for the Saratoga Central School District in Saratoga Springs for $8 million.
The Rockland Green meeting quickly devolved into a spectacle when County Legislator Lon Hofstein raised concerns about the ballooning costs of the taxpayer-funded project. He reminded the board that Rockland Green Chairman Howard Phillips, who is also the Haverstraw Town Supervisor, represented to the County Legislature in 2022 that Rockland Green could build a shelter for $7 million to $8 million. At the time, Rockland County was underway with plans to rebuild the shelter with a new building on county-owned land at 65 Firemens Memorial Drive in Pomona, where the shelter has stood for 50 years.
“You stated the project would cost $7 to $8 million, and that was not true,” said Hofstein. “Then it went up to $14 million, then $18 million. It is difficult to rationalize that kind of spending knowing that we have people who are homeless, people who cannot find a next meal. Clearly something went out of control.”
Cutting off Hofstein, Phillips became red-faced and enraged, navigating a discordant response that meandered from rising construction costs to dead cats at Hi Tor to the upwardly spiraling cost of the County Highway Garage to ad hominem attacks on Hofstein.
“I wish I could control market prices,” said Phillips, before saying Rockland Green “is the most outstanding agency,” then moving on to challenge Hofstein over whether he had an issue with the Rockland County’s escalating costs on its new highway garage.
“Did you have an issue with that?” Phillips demanded. “Did you state your dissatisfaction.”
Hofstein refused to back down, saying, “Okay, you want to play this game.” Phillips reclaimed the floor, but the heated exchange continued.
Hofstein said “So much for the dramatics. I don’t want to move off topic,” reminding the board that the shelter project was essentially a bait-and-switch because Phillips never presented a clear financial plan to the County Legislature when he needed approval to get Rockland Green’s (the former Solid Waste Management Authority) charter amended to include animal management.
For three years, the county had worked on a plan to spend $7.75 million to build a new facility with a combination of county funds, grants, and monies raised by the shelter. In 2022, the County Legislature tabled a resolution that would have capped county expenditure on the entire project at $17.7 million but limit construction costs to nearly $14 million, after Phillips pressed his argument that Rockland Green could do it more economically.
When Rockland Green took over animal management, the county abandoned its project and leased the Hi Tor site to Rockland Green for $1 annually. That forced Rockland Green and Hi Tor into an unhappy marriage, in which Rockland Green was supposed to manage the physical plant, and Hi Tor would continue to care for the animals pending construction of the new shelter.
An Escalating Tax Burden
In 2023, Rockland Green imposed a $1.4 million tax levy on residents to support the shelter operation. In 2024, the levy rose to $1.6 million, and then to $1.8 million, a 28.5 percent increase over three years. Prior to the takeover, the five Rockland towns effectively starved Hi Tor of funds, providing only about $330,000 of the shelter’s $1 million budget, leaving the operation in perpetual debt and in a state of decay in the County-owned building.
Rockland Green has shifted the animal shelter from a nonprofit that depended on a combination of fundraising and paltry municipal support to an enterprise fully funded by taxpayer dollars. While many praise Rockland Green for giving the animal shelter increased financial support, others say the project’s new location presents a raft of concerns.
The building has been the subject of controversy because it is situated in a corner of West Haverstraw that is not easily accessed by major roads. Also, the building sits in a FEMA-designated flood zone, is close to the Joint Sewer Regional Authority, which constantly emits bad odors, and there is a 454,000-square-foot 24/7 trucking warehouse proposed a stone’s throw from the shelter on a former construction landfill site that is under review by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The new animal shelter sits between two landfills that, according to the truck warehouse developer’s expert at Boswell Engineering of Hackensack, New Jersey, leach heavy metals in the water table beneath the new shelter site. None of these concerns have given Rockland Green pause in its plans nor have any of these issues been studied in public under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).
The proposed animal shelter will be designed to house up to 120 dogs, 226 cats, and 213 exotics (including 60 guinea pigs, 108 rabbits, and 45 avian/reptiles.) It’s slated to include a veterinary surgical center, an indoor exercise track, cat congregant rooms and indoor play areas, adoption and quarantine rooms, multiple offices and conference rooms, a staff lounge and a large walk-in freezer.
The plan also calls for construction of a second-floor mezzanine in the one-story building and the addition of windows to the windowless warehouse building. Space has been set aside on the second floor for future use and the lobby was designed as a two-story open-air atrium.
Hofstein called the project “excessive” and said it should be scaled back.
He, along with freshman legislator Raymond Sheridan, voted against the project. The rest of Rockland Green’s board, which includes the five town supervisors, two mayors and several legislators, voted to approve the award to O’Connor.
Phillips said the shelter could be finished by late 2025, though that is unlikely. And while the project has been awarded at $14.7 million, this is the floor, not the ceiling. Rockland Green’s history indicates that the quasi-public agency is prone to grossly underestimate the cost of its projects, especially its Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Hillburn.
In 2021, Rockland Green bonded $35 million to build the MRF and issued contracts in accordance with competitive bids based on drawings and plans that were repeatedly revised for accuracy, according to its records. Contracts were awarded to contractors, electricians, plumbers, and others. But each of these contracts were altered through “change orders” that the board of Rockland Green approved, adding millions to the project. For example, there were 111 change orders for the Butler Construction contract, 28 change orders for Rockland Electric, and more than 20 change orders for Fire Protection.
Lowe said change orders are typical in large projects.
Rockland Green will likely hire a professional shelter operator when the project is completed. Four Legs Good, a small cat rescue from New City, is managing day-to-day operations at the former Hi Tor shelter, for now.
Rockland Green’s Mounting Debt & Legal Woes
“Very few happen with zero change orders,” Lowe said. “It’s a fundamental component of every project.”
Rockland Green, according to its latest published financial statement already carries about $50 million in bond debt and has allocated about $8 million dollars in its fiscal year 2024 budget for payment of interest and principal on its debt. The vote on Tuesday authorized an additional $18 million in debt. Changes orders will likely require additional borrowing.
In addition, Rockland Green continues to ratchet up legal costs in its battle with Hi Tor Animal Shelter. The shelter has inhouse attorneys, it contracts with West Group Law PLLC, and it retains Lawrence Garvey, the former Rockland County Republican Committee Chairman, for $81,000 annually.
In 2023, Rockland Green entered into a two-year contract with Hi Tor. Nine months later, Rockland Green ousted the longtime nonprofit shelter operator, and replaced its management with Four Legs Good. After months of legal wrangling, Rockland Green in May 2024, sued Hi Tor for breach of contract. In response, Hi Tor filed a counterclaim, alleging it was Rockland Green that breached the contract, and that it “violated the covenant of good faith and fair dealing implicit in the parties contract” because Rockland Green severed the arrangement without notice or due process.
“In the event the Solid Waste Management Authority sought to terminate the contract due to a purported default by Hi Tor, it was to provide 30 days’ written notice to Hi Tor of the intent to terminate the contact and afford Hi Tor the opportunity to cure any alleged default,” the suit says, using direct language from the written contract.
In addition, Rockland Green sued a handful of the board members and an employee “as individuals,” which the targets said was nothing short of harassment because individuals cannot be held responsible in a contract dispute and nonprofit board members are protected under the law through an immunity statute. Those legal wranglings have stretched for months. The individual board members were released from the suit in November. The contract dispute case is still pending, continuing to burden taxpayers with legal costs.
On Tuesday, four of the five towns renewed an intermunicipal agreement for animal care services, fulfilling a legal obligation under state law. The Town of Orangetown opted out again and will continue to use the Hudson Valley Humane Society. Orangetown residents will pay for the shelter rebuild, but not for the current running of animal care operation at the former Hi Tor site.
