The Rockland Dems can do better

I attended the Rockland County Democratic Party convention last night and I am sad to say that I saw local politics at its worst.

First of all, this was supposed to be the county convention, but it devolved into a Ramapo town feud, and County Democratic Chairman Vince Monte didn't help matters by refusing to hold a roll call at the beginning of the meeting as requested by a clear majority of people there.

It was a waste of time for members of the Orangetown, Clarkstown, Haverstraw, and Stony Point Democratic Committees.

We came there, in force, to support our new committee appointments and to talk about campaigning for Barack Obama for the Presidency. But what we got ourselves into was the middle of a fight between the old machine politics of Ramapo and an upstart group that rightfully sought to take over the reigns.

All the towns were to have their organizational meetings before the county meeting. The outgoing chair of the Ramapo Democratic Committee, Laurence O. Toole (the brother-in-law of Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence), ignored this request, leaving the town committee in chaos for the presumptive incoming chair, Joe Meyers. And the chaos spilled over into our county meeting:


The fight nearly became physical a few times: There were a few shouting matches and some balled fists. The group was loud and demanding. Even the manager of the Nyack Seaport—where the event was held—came into the fray. He began to demand to the Orangetown Police that the Ramapo group be removed after Monte abruptly adjourned the meeting. The manager even alleged that a member of the Ramapo Democrats for Change had insulted his daughter.

The whole event was a disgraceful display and historically reminiscent of when Tammany Hall was pushed from power by reformers in the early 1930s.


Monte wanted committee members to sign in - a move the insurgents mistrusted and some longtime Democrats saw as a break with tradition.

"They could sign in anyone; they could write in other people's names," Joseph Meyers, a committeeman and county legislator from Airmont, said of the old guard of the town group.

I have to agree with Joe Meyers on this point. There is no good reason to abandon a practice used in party meetings and conventions for something that could be easily hacked. And that's what bothered Meyers and his followers, that the old Ramapo guard, led by town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, would use this poor accounting to force its agenda on the town.

The roll call demand by Meyers, an organizer of the reform movement who was later elected committee chairman, was supported by Robert Crable, a 50-year committeeman from Orangetown.

"We can't have a roll call?" Crable said into a microphone as Monte and his followers packed up before an audience of more than 400 people.

"We have roll calls all the time," Crable said. "Are we going to pull the whole agenda back? Are we going to select a chairman?"

This made Crable an unlikely, but instant hero to many in attendance. And Vince Monte clearly upset; he didn't acknowledge Crable's request and I later overheard him chastising Crable for his comments.

At one point, Monte's group wanted to remove noncommittee people from the room at The Nyack Seaport restaurant.

I'm not sure what that would have accomplished. There were dozens of people there who were either interested in becoming committee members or who were to be nominated as committee members. Personally, I naively invited several Barack Obama supporters to the meeting, thinking that there would be some information about getting our Democratic candidate elected president.

"I will not be part of an illegal meeting," a visibly agitated St. Lawrence said before leaving. "The county chairman adjourned the meeting. That's all."

Oh, c'mon. Let's not toss around words like "illegal" so flippantly. Democracy can sometimes be messy, and what happened last night might not adhere to the rules or stand up in a civil court (should it come to that, and I heard that it may); still I would not say that these people were acting in an illegal manner when trying to obtain control of their party.

I was close by as St. Lawrence and Toole stormed out with their purple faces and veins bulging. It's amazing to see grown men acting like petulant children and not graciously accepting impending defeat. Their actions were clearly an embarrassment to the entire town of Ramapo.

After the hall cleared of most of St. Lawrence's supporters, Meyers' group held a roll call, filled committee vacancies, and selected its officers. The Ramapo Democrats for Change were congratulated by state Senate candidate Gregory Julian and by Jacques Michel, a county legislator from Ramapo who was named co-chairman of the new group.

This part of the Journal News article is completely inaccurate. There weren't that many St. Lawrence supporters there at all. The people that were leaving were committee members from other towns who realized their presence was a waste of time. Believe me, I shook a lot of their hands as the left.

Meyers told the committee members to expect a legal challenge of their meeting by the Democrats not in the reform movement.

He said the new committee members needed to attend an organizational meeting scheduled by the old guard for Sept. 25.

I'm sorry to say that Meyers continues to have a war on his hands. There is some disagreement on whether the impromptu Ramapo meeting was legal or not. However, I would advise against the county committee challenging its validity. The next battle may be for the soul of the County party.

Although I don't like how it impacted our county meeting, I'm happy for the upstarts in Ramapo for getting the change they want and deserve. And, going forward, I think that we're going to need some new perspectives in the county committee as well.