By Dan Murphy
On Nov. 15, The Yorktown Town Board voted to revoke a redevelopment contract with RC Recration Development for the Valley Fields Par 3 Golf Course in Jefferson Valley. “The developer has vacillated from giving us four false reopening dates to claiming that our contract does not require him to give us a projected opening date. It’s clear to the Town Board that this company is an unreliable partner that is either incapable of redeveloping our golf course or unwilling to do so in a reasonable time frame,” said Supervisor Matt Slater.
Slater and the Town claim that under the terms of Yorktown’s contract with RC Recreation, the Town has the right to terminate the agreement for cause. In September, the Town Board ordered RC Recreation Development to open the Town’s nine-hole Par 3 Golf Course for public use by November 15 or face termination of the company’s concession agreement.
Yorktown Parks Superintendent James Martorano told the Town Board that some of the recent shoddy work at the golf course included laying the sod on the golf greens before installing the irrigation system, which sits unassembled on the property. “I don’t see this golf course opening with this group within the next two years, realistically,” said Martorano.
RC Development Principal Larry Nussbaum issued the following statement: “According to the lame-duck Town Supervisor Matt Slater, today, November 30, 2022, is ostensibly meant to be the end of the public-private partnership between RC Recreation and the Town first established in 2014, then renewed and extended in 2018. But, as usual, Slater has it dead wrong.
“While Slater enjoys his new life in Albany, the taxpayers of the Town of Yorktown will suffer his legacy for years to come: paying for the defense of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit for compensatory and punitive damages arising from Slater’s orchestration of, and Chief Building Inspector John Landi’s participation
in, the manufacturing of a set of bogus alleged building code violations, which they then used as a pretense to try and terminate RC’s concession. The Yorktown police reviewed certain of these allegations and, when presented with highly conflicting accounts by the Town’s own staff, found no probable cause to pursue them.
“The Town then tried to press the same charges in civil court, but withdrew the charges before they could be adjudicated. In other words, the Town has done everything in its power to shield its untoward conduct from public and judicial scrutiny.
“Meanwhile, RC continues to receive reports from contractors and others of the Town strong-arming and intimidation as they sought to complete the very work the Town demanded be completed. To say this is Kafka-esque is to engage in understatement in the extreme.
“Indeed, now months after the initial, completely staged “inspection,” the Town has produced no inspection report, no photographs – no proof whatsoever to support their manufactured and bogus allegations, apart from the statements of Slater, who now washes his hands of the dispute and leaves the Town holding the bag while he enjoys a new life in Albany.
“RC has always been and remains ready to offer the Town a best-in-class executive golf experience. Were it not for Slater’s personal vendetta and shortsightedness, we could have achieved that goal for the betterment of our community. But now instead, the taxpayers get to fund Slater’s defense in absentia,” said Nussbaum.
