http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/05/03/news-camstreets-05-03.html
May 03, 2006
Subdivision streets keep names for now
By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
[email protected]
Monroe - A housing developer who resisted efforts to name five streets he built after local victims of Sept. 11 has won in court.
State Supreme Court Justice John McGuirk has ruled that developer Sol Ekstein can use the golf-themed street names he picked for 60-home Prestwick Gardens because he owns the roads until they're turned over to the village.
Ekstein, a Kiryas Joel builder whose company, B.V. Builders Inc., is in New Hampton, sued the village in February because village trustees had chosen to use the last names of five Monroe residents who died in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center: Massella, Marino, Barnes, Asher and Dowd.
In response to McGuirk's April 26 ruling, Ekstein's lawyer, Jim Sweeney, said that "honoring the memory of the Sept. 11 victims is a worthy objective. However, to do so at the expense of the rights of private citizens is wrong."
Mayor John Karl III, who had suggested the Sept. 11 road names and received approval from the victims' families, said yesterday that the village won't appeal the decision. It will simply rename the roads once Ekstein finishes his upscale development and turns over the roads to the village.
"It's just going to be an inconvenience for the people buying there," Karl said.
Ekstein's suit had also named Walter Koury, Orange County's emergency services commissioner, since his 911 center enters new road names in its computer system to direct firefighters and other emergency responders. McGuirk ruled that Koury and his department weren't involved in the naming dispute.
McGuirk said in his ruling that Monroe's codes allow the village Planning Board, not the trustees, to name new streets.
In this case, he said, the Planning Board neglected to assign names before approving the project, but later suggested ones that the village trustees "apparently did not like."
