To the Editor:

In last week’s Gazette, a letter written by Kieran Murray purported to inform the public
about what was then a potential lawsuit against the Village in regard to the Village Board’s
passage of the Harmon area zoning amendments on November 16, 2009. Since the date of Mr.
Murray’s letter, an Article 78 action has been filed by a local attorney and two individual
petitioners, which seeks judicial review of the Village Board’s actions in the consideration of and
passage of these zoning code amendments.

Mr. Murray’s letter sets forth the accusation that the Article 78 action is merely “a
political tool to influence the 2010 election.” This is untrue. Criticism of the Harmon area
zoning amendments has long predated the 2010 election, as Mr. Murray is quite aware. The
Harmon area zoning plan may have enjoyed great support from every member of the Village
Board, but many of the citizens of Croton, and the Harmon area in particular, remain
unconvinced that the plan as proposed and passed is able to achieve its stated objective of
commercial revitalization of the Harmon area, or that the Village Board’s actions in rushing to
pass this legislation took full account of the legal procedures necessary for passage of such a law,
or that the law is consistent with numerous provisions of Croton’s Comprehensive Plan.
Substantive criticism of the assumptions and errors inherent in the reports purchased from
consultants to advocate in favor of this plan were not substantively addressed by the Village
Board prior to the passage of this law. Moreover, more than once during the consideration of
this plan was the Village Board warned that the passage of the law would engender litigation.
Indeed, it has.

Indifferent to these concerns, however, the Village Board enacted the Harmon area
zoning amendments on November 16, 2009 – exactly four months before the 2010 election.
Coincidentally, the statute of limitations governing the filing of Article 78 actions is also four
months. Mr. Murray’s public statements regarding the Article 78 action indicate that he sees a
nefarious objective behind the filing of the Article 78 action in the days prior to the election. In
regard to this, I believe two points must be noted. First, in the days between the filing of the
lawsuit and the election, it was the Croton Democratic Committee, and no other party, that
undertook efforts to publicize the lawsuit for political purposes. Second, compilation of the
evidence required for an Article 78 action is a long, painstaking process, often involving
Freedom of Information Law requests that must be submitted to the party likely to be sued.
Unlike other civil lawsuits, Article 78 actions don’t permit long periods during which the parties
exchange documents and conduct depositions in order to explore their respective claims and
defenses. They are decided on the papers that are submitted. It takes time and dedication to
draft legal documents as extensive as those put forth in the Article 78 action that was filed. The
decision to file in mid-March was driven entirely by the four month limitations period that
governs this type of legal proceeding, and not the date of the election. Neither Mr. Murray, nor
anyone else who has accused the petitioners and attorney of record of undertaking a “political
action” by this suit has any basis for their claims in this regard.

Mr. Murray is touted by opponents of the Article 78 action as being “well versed” in the
process of Article 78 litigation. As Mr. Murray is not an attorney, one can only assume that
much of his alleged expertise was gained as a result of his having sued the Village some years
ago in two Article 78 actions, instituted in response to what he obviously considered adverse
rulings that negatively impacted his rights to the use and enjoyment of his property. Mr.
Murray’s condemnation of those who would seek the same recourse, for vindication of the same
rights that inspired his own lawsuits, seems inappropriate at best, and downright hypocritical at
worst. Either way, the question of whether the passage of the Harmon area zoning amendments
was unlawfully accomplished is now in the hands of an impartial tribunal. Mr. Murray, and the
members of the Village Board, who have claimed a mandate for this plan, would be wise to
consider first, that no matter how big an electoral victory they secure, no one elected them to
break the law, and further, in the words of John Viscount Morley, that “you have not converted a
man because you have silenced him.”

Roseann Schuyler
Croton on Hudson