FISHKILL – Town Supervisor Azem “Ozzy” Albra of Fishkill is being sued in Dutchess County State Supreme Court for actions he took before being sworn into office in January. Plaintiffs GLD3, LLC and Snook-9 Realty, Inc., jointly known as the Continental Commons project, are suing Albra as an individual, not in his capacity as town supervisor.
Right before Albra took office, he sued the Town of Fishkill and then-Supervisor Bob LaColla to prevent the town board from allowing two public hearings to be held; one of which involved the plaintiff’s project, known as Continental Commons. The lawsuit, filed on December 30, required an emergency hearing in front of an acting Dutchess County Supreme Court judge on the afternoon of December 30.
Albra, acting as a private citizen, used the law firm of Feerick, Nugent, MacCartney PLLC to represent him in the proceeding. The lawsuit claimed that certain public hearings, scheduled for that evening for Continental Commons and one for Herring Sanitation, were not set in accordance with state law. The Continental Commons public hearing was to extend town water and sewer lines to include the Continental Commons property. The Continental Commons plaintiffs, in this case, claim that Albra’s suit was a ploy to interfere with the project.
At the hearing on December 30, Judge Egitto issued an order preventing the public hearings from taking place. A second appearance was scheduled for a date in January 2020. After successfully getting the restraining order preventing the vote, Albra’s law firm withdrew the action after the start of the new year.
The attorney for Continental Commons, Stephen Riccardulli, claims in the suit, that Albra’s actions were “designed to manipulate local government procedure. It was filed solely to injure plaintiffs by depriving the former town board of jurisdiction over GLD3’s water and sewer district application and to move the vote into 2020 after Albra took office as town supervisor, where he now presides over the town board and where Albra himself would be able to vote on the decision of whether or not to extend the water and sewer districts.”
After taking office, Albra and other new members of the town board discussed a town-wide moratorium on all commercial development. The plaintiffs allege that this proposed moratorium is consistent with Albra’s campaign theme in which he sent mailings to the residents that said “Stop Continental Commons.” Riccardulli claims that on November 11, 2019, in an interview with media, Albra said that his number one priority after taking office is to stop Continental Commons. The plaintiffs are seeking an award of more than $250,000 from Albra for his actions.
When asked about the lawsuit, Albra responded to Mid-Hudson News saying, “I filed suit against the town as a private citizen. You know, you were there (referring to a reporter from Mid-Hudson News). You need to cover that, not a frivolous lawsuit.” The law firm that represented Albra in his “private citizen” lawsuit, Feerick, Nugent, MacCartney, was appointed as the law firm for the town board, zoning board, and planning boards after Albra was sworn in earlier this month.
