![(Photo by David Gordon)]()
(Photo by David Gordon)
Neighbors have complained of gang activity on Skyline Drive for some time now. On April 22, a man fired a sawed-off shotgun at his girlfriend in the presence of her three children. Police later found an indoor marijuana-growing operation in the girlfriend’s apartment.
As a result of this and other incidents, police have stepped up their patrols in the Skyline Apartments, and are working with other law enforcement agencies to investigate criminal incidents and improve law enforcement in the area, Police Chief Joseph Sinagra told area residents.
“Since April 22, there have been about five calls at Skyline Apartments for suspicious activity,” Sinagra said at a Town Board meeting Wednesday, May 8. “I’m happy to report that on all five occasions, it was undercover police officers that were working in the area, and the residents were calling about the undercovers.”
Councilman Fred Costello said residents should call police if they see suspicious activity. If it turns out that they saw police activity or other harmless activity, that’s OK, he said. A call could result in an arrest or prevent a crime.
Following the April 22 shooting incident, the Glasco Fire Department had about 20 volunteers help comb the area for evidence, and they were the ones who found most of the evidence, Sinagra said.
The owners of the project have been put on notice that unless the problems are cleared up the town will take legal action against them, Sinagra said.
Paul Jameson, who lives on Lamb Ave., which intersects with Skyline Drive, presented the Town Board with a letter signed by 31 neighborhood residents asking the town to do something about the criminal activity. Several area residents attended the May 8 Town Board meeting, to complain about drugs, trash and dogs running loose at the apartments. Despite promises to clean up the development and step up police patrols, residents are still afraid to sit outside their homes or let their children play outside, several residents said.
“Seven months ago I spoke to the board about some issues we were having in the Barclay Heights neighborhood with Skyline Apartments,” Jameson said. “We talked about the drug activity, the gang activity, and I mentioned – along with everything else – the amount of affordable housing coming into the area. I think I said if you want to have another Newburgh or Poughkeepsie, you will have it in five years. I was wrong when I said that to you, because it only took about seven months.”
Referring to the shooting incident on April 22, Jameson asserted that this incident is evidence of the level of violence. “The police responded very quickly,” Jameson said, reading from the residents’ letter. “They arrived, they found the illegal shotgun that was used in the incident.”
Jameson said he has looked for management representatives to complain about trash in his yard. He also alleged that mold is apparent on the outside of the buildings, and there was gang tagging that has since been removed, he said.
“We request that the Town Board take whatever measures are available under the law to remove this blight and criminal activity. We want restoration of peace and tranquility to our neighborhood,” the petition states.
Jameson thanked Police Chief Joseph Sinagra for his efforts and the efforts of his department. Officers have stopped to speak to him. “I am happy that things are being done, but I’m not happy that it got to this point.”
Several other neighbors voiced similar concerns.
“The police chief has reached out to other agencies; the State Police as well as the Ulster County Sheriff’s Department to do regular patrols each shift,” said Supervisor Kelly Myers. “I believe each shift is doing two patrols. All the officers with take-home cars are patrolling at the beginning and the end of their shifts, so you’ll see unmarked cars as well as regular police patrols going through.”
Police are patrolling the hallways in the buildings as well as the grounds, Myers said.
Myers said she met with the police chief, the town attorney, the detective sergeant and the building inspector to discuss “what full measure of scrutiny the town could bring to bear on this project.”
The building is in receivership, that is, it has been foreclosed upon and is being held by a bank, Myers said. “They could potentially lose their building through forfeiture laws if these things continue,” she said. “We reached out to the landlord, and he flew in from out of town and they will be inspecting all the apartments. Our building inspector is stepping up inspections there to make sure everything is fully enforced.”
The town has also contacted the Department of Social Services to express concerns about criminals being placed in the building and receiving funding from Ulster County to be there, Myers said.
Since the landlord was contacted, those involved in the shooting incident have been evicted, Myers said. “Working closely with the landlord should also be beneficial, because they want to get this cleaned up, too.”
Sinagra said he could understand the neighbors’ frustration.
“I promise you, as your chief of police, that we will instill in you, in the very near future, a level of comfort that you can come outside your homes, that there’s not going to be the ongoing issues,” he said.
Since Jameson first contacted him about a year ago regarding problems at the project, the police have tried several methods to deal with the problems, Sinagra said. Working with other police agencies, police tried to buy narcotics. “However, the problem with these operations is it takes a long time. Culmination takes at least a year before everything comes to fruition.”
At the same time “the pot was boiling, and on April 22 it boiled over.”
Sinagra immediately contacted the Ulster County Sheriff and the New York State Police to develop a saturation plan, he said. “You have to be careful when you develop a saturation plan, because you’re borderline harassing the community, in this case the community of Skyline Drive. We have to make sure that litigiously we have to do what’s right for the taxpayers of the town because… we can clean it up for you, but I don’t want to be standing here a year from now explaining why we’re being sued. We receive a number of complaints from there saying they are being harassed. We aren’t harassing them; we are insuring their safety and insuring the safety of their neighbors who live in the outlying areas.”
Sinagra said he responded to the incident on April 22, was there until late at night and returned the following morning and spoke to the residents. “They were concerned that we were back that early in the morning, and I said ‘get used to it, we’re going to be here.’” The reason for the coverage was not to harass people but to insure their safety, he said.
The receiver of payments from the tenants is a lawyer, [Stanley] Schutzman of Poughkeepsie, Sinagra said. “Greystone Corporation, out of Tennessee, is actually the holding company for the property. Tom Ruffin is the individual that came and spoke to us this past week; myself, the detective sergeant and Captain [Robert] Nuzzo from the State Police, and at that time we developed a plan with Mr. Ruffin about how Greystone Corporation is going to address Skyline Apartments. You are going to see a lot of activity up there very soon. Greystone understands what is at stake here. Mr. Schutzman from Poughkeepsie understands what is at stake here. They are receiving money as the receiver of payments from the renters.”
However “we have to be careful when we’re dealing with housing,” Sinagra said. “We can’t just throw people out because we don’t like the way they conduct themselves, but we can let them know we don’t appreciate the way they conduct themselves, and if they do something that’s a criminal act, we, as police, are going to respond to it.
“Sometimes the situation has to boil over, so that at the end of the day we can show we are justified in our action,” Sinagra said. “As the town supervisor said, we walk the apartments. We don’t go into the individual apartments, but we go into the common hallways. We go up the stairs, down the stairs, we walk around the back, we say ‘hi’ to people and if we see people around we stop and talk to them. As Mr. [Robert] Aiello said, there are a lot of decent people who live up there.”
Sinagra displayed a letter Town Attorney John Greco has written to the law firm of Hanig and Schutzman that outlines the problems and warns that the town will take action against the receiver in the event that the problems persist. “I can tell you that this letter is what brought [company representative] Tom Ruffin up from Tennessee. After a walk through the buildings, “he was totally blown away by what he saw,” Sinagra said. As a result, “there will be changes taking place,” he said, but at this point he can’t give details.
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