kiryas joel Town critic moves out of state

Town of Monroe — It was a parting shot from one of Monroe's most disgruntled political opponents.

Ann Krawet, a failed town supervisor candidate and self-proclaimed crusader for the rights of non-Hasidic residents, brought a list of code violations around her Mountainview Drive home once more to the town government. She mentioned the neighbor with the overflowing garbage, the dilapidated matzo factory, and the tires and furniture dumped in the woods. This complaint — lodged Feb. 4 — was one of more than three dozen she had filed over a decade.

She repeated her criticism of the Town Board. "I really feel that you need to pay attention to stop this decrepitness from spreading," she told officials.

This would mark her last stand.

For years, Krawet was a lone voice in her bucolic northern Monroe neighborhood. She complained of growing school bus traffic, piled-up garbage and what she saw as a lack of consideration from a growing number of Hasidic neighbors, many of them transplants from the adjacent Satmar village of Kiryas Joel.

Town law often was on her side. But year after year the problems returned — a sign, in Krawet's mind, that the government lacked the will to defy members of a powerful Kiryas Joel bloc vote.

Meanwhile, the town has gotten serious about cracking down on code violators elsewhere.

In one recent instance, town workers removed garbage from a southern Monroe residence on High Ridge and charged the property owner for the cost. The action was made possible with the passage of a property-maintenance law last year.

Krawet called it a "dual standard."

Code Enforcement Officer Charlie Finnerty, who is also the chairman of the town Planning Board, ensured that the town would address the problems around Mountainview Drive, implementing the powers of the new property-maintenance law if needed.

But some Town Board members spoke of obstacles.

Councilman Harley Doles said bureaucratic obstacles made it hard to fix the roads, which belong to the county and state. Supervisor Sandy Leonard added that the courts are lenient about non-blood relatives living together, making it difficult to eliminate boarding houses.

Krawet viewed such answers as insufficient, she said. It's why, she said, she's decided to move on.

She and her husband recently sold their 1,900-square-foot Mountainview Drive home for $950,500 to one of their Hasidic neighbors.

"It's just been a major, unhappy battle [on the part of people living outside of Kiryas Joel] to be heard and respected," she told a reporter, a day after the Town Board meeting. A few days later, she called to say she had moved out of state.

She declined to say where

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