Cortlandt WATCH Members Reflect on 30 Years of Activism

By Rick Pezzullo

They were ordinary citizens with ordinary concerns about potential changes to their neighborhoods. They quickly learned they weren’t alone.

Cortlandt WATCH (We Are The Cortlandt Homeowners) was created in 1985 by residents Eunice Rosenberg, Charley Nagy, Bob Foley and Gerry Gilmartin as development was on the rise in town and zoning regulations were on the verge of being altered to allow further building.

A few years later the membership grew to about 700 and town officials began to take notice.

“This important organization had members from all parts of the town and they were interested in controlling over development, having rational planned growth, preserving open space, and protecting our environment,” said Cortlandt Supervisor Linda Puglisi, a WATCH member when she was first elected as a councilwoman in 1987 with another WATCH member Tom Carulli.

“Their ideas, recommendations, principles and goals were fulfilled in our government by their tireless efforts to make positive change in Cortlandt,” Puglisi said. “In the early years we worked on a wetland law, a steep slopes ordinance, lot counts and a tree ordinance with their input and involvement.”

WATCH became a force in town after its successful lawsuit against the Planning Board’s approval of more than 300 units for Habitat Lafayette, now called Cortlandt Estates, on Lafayette Avenue. WATCH received legal standing to intervene, and played a key role in the project being slashed to 140 units, along with permanent protection of a wetland on the site.

“We were fortunate to be a group of individuals that saw something and decided to do something, and learned we could do something,” said Ken Hoch, a former WATCH president who later served on the town’s Planning Board and currently works in Cortlandt’s Code Enforcement Office. “We didn’t fear them anymore because we were being successful. They were bullies. In unity there is strength.”

“That’s when they listened,” Foley said of town planners after WATCH prevailed in its lawsuit. “We wanted to interface with the town and we did. The lawsuit was a catalyst.”

During that same time, WATCH opposed a 1,200-unit project proposed on Cortlandt’s northern border that ultimately led to the preservation of a 325-acre Gateway Park in 2000. It was a 15-year effort that included civic organizations, charitable foundations and local, county and state officials.

“One thing Cortlandt WATCH teaches you is the future belongs to whoever shows up,” said WATCH member Karen Bernard, who noted hundreds of people turned out a meeting to oppose Habitat Lafayette. “If you believe what you’re doing, you have to do it.”

Bernard said WATCH also had to endure its share of threats and intimidation from developers and their representatives.

WATCH evolved over the years as an umbrella coalition group for about 30 homeowner associations who were struggling to have a voice. WATCH members attended town meetings to learn their rights and responsibilities and formulated a plan to get members elected or appointed to boards. John Sloan was a former Planning Board chairman and served 20 years on the Town Board. Foley has been on the Planning Board for about 20 years and Rosenberg served on the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals.

“We were perceived to be political but we were non-political,” Foley emphasized. “We weren’t all of one party as people were claiming. We didn’t endorse candidates.”

WATCH later received national media attention on CNN, USA Today and radio stations after becoming a co-plaintiff with Riverkeeper in a lead contamination issue at the shooting range at Blue Mountain Reservation.

The non-profit group’s activism expanded to include larger county and state initiatives such as ending ocean dumping of sludge from the Peekskill and Ossining sewage treatment plants, transport and disposal of ash from the County Incinerator and the Sprout Brook ash pit, and blocking a gravel-crushing operation on the Westchester/Putnam border.

However, with development issues having subsided and active members down to a few handfuls, Sue McDonnell, current president of WATCH, announced at its 2015 annual meeting WATCH members voted to disband the group.

“It’s bittersweet,” Bernard said. “You don’t know or can predict when an organization will outlive its usefulness.”

Foley said he had mixed feelings about WATCH calling it quits, but maintained there was no doubt the group made a difference.

“Maybe it did run its course,” Foley said. “The main part is the development issues are mitigated better than they were years ago. It’s much better than it was.”