By Dan Murphy
Trader Joe’s, the popular grocery store, opened its first store in Northern Westchester on July 21. Located on Crompond road in the Lowe’s Shopping Center next to the Taconic Parkway, Trader Joe’s has quickly developed a big following from foodies in the tri-state region.
Other Trader Joe’s locations in Hartsdale, Larchmont and Scarsdale have been successful. The Yorktown opening was well attended and included a ribbon cutting with Yorktown Supervisor Matt Slater. “It’s a good experience to come to Trader Joe’s, it’s a good experience to come to the town of Yorktown,” who added that 100 jobs were created with the opening.
“It just really shows what we as a community can accomplish by attracting a brand name like Trader Joe’s right here to the town of Yorktown to be a regional attraction,” Slater said.
The Manager of the Yorktown store, Charlie Ranken, spoke to the media. “I’d like to give a shout-out to the town leadership of Yorktown and their support. My wonderful crew is ready to serve our customers.”
Despite inflation, Trader Joe’s has been able to continue to provide low-cost, high quality products. It took a long time to complete the store and open the doors to the public, but to get a name like Trader Joe’s in Yorktown is a feather in the cap for the community and for Supervisor Slater and the Town Board.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the long closed Par-3 golf course next to the JV Mall, formerly known as Indian Hill, will not open anytime soon. A lawsuit filed by the developers against the Town of Yorktown and Supervisor Matt Slater, alleges political preferences being used to limit the company RC Recreation Development LLC, from completing the 9-hole course and opening it to the public.
Slater calls the lawsuit nonsense and says that the developer was given years to complete the project but couldn’t do it.
- RC Recreation Development LLC has been in contract to redevelop the nine-hole public golf course since 2014
- Holding a contractor accountable for under-performance over eight and a half years is not a political campaign, sabotage, abuse, or disparagement.
- Before the Covid-19 pandemic and my tenure as supervisor, six years of this contract passed with paltry accomplishment—an inexcusable degree of inaction.
- Under the contract, the Town is entitled to enter the golf course to inspect, observe or monitor any aspect of the licensee’s operations. No need for disguises and none were used.
Despite years of delays, the Town Board sought to work with this developer to advance this golf course’s completion. Instead, we have received excuses and false promises while the developer or its employees violate our ordinances, including by having employees unlawfully live in this Town park and by operating without a proper building permit since 2019. The time has come for RC Recreation Development and its principals to acknowledge that they have been incapable of completing this project. Their lawsuit makes outlandish allegations to shift public attention away from their failure. I will take on any fight to protect taxpayers from abuse,” wrote Slater in a letter to Westchester Rising, explaining his side of what is expected to be a long legal battle.
And in the meantime, the course will remain closed. Some reports have only 3 of the 9 holes complete.
But Slater’s comments about this “is not a political campaign, sabotage, abuse or disparagement,” is exactly what RC Recreation Development LLC is alleging, writing in the complaint, “But then Slater took office in January 2020. Styling himself after prominent conservatives like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, Slater used his position as Town Supervisor as a bully-pulpit from which he routinely and repeatedly (but baselessly) disparaged RC and/or the golf course, often joined in this spiteful chorus by Esposito.”
Councilman Sergio Esposito is also named in the lawsuit with Town Building Inspector John Landi.
The case is assigned to Judge Melissa Loehr, Acting Supreme court Judge. The attorneys are for the Town Adam Rodriguez of the well known Westchester firm of Bleakley Platt. For RC Development William Hurst, of Young, Sommer in Albany.
More on the details of the lawsuit coming soon.
