Lawsuit met with relief, not surprise

By Nik Bonopartis
Poughkeepsie Journal

After hearing that the Town of Poughkeepsie will seek damages for the controversial 1996 purchase of the police and court facility, former town officials familiar with the purchase had much the same reaction: It's about time.

''We should have done it years ago,'' former town comptroller Gordon MacKenzie said.

''I think we all knew something was wrong,'' said MacKenzie, who worked for the town for 11 years before the scandal. ''Everybody knew that during those years.''

The town is seeking $50 million in damages from an alleged scheme -- headed by former Dutchess County GOP Chairman William Paroli Sr. -- to inflate the price of the police-court facility and pocket the extra money. The lawsuit also alleges that former town board members and private contractors were involved in the scheme.

Hoping for final resolution

Democrat Anna Buchholz, who served as Poughkeepsie's supervisor in the late 1970s and the 1980s, said she hoped the cloud left hanging over the town by the corruption scandal that rocked the town in the late 1990s could finally be pushed away by the lawsuit. But she said she was ''very disappointed that it has taken this long to bring this about.''

''I don't know how warm the trail still is, but I would hope the cold truth would come out eventually about whatever mishandling there was of town government at that point,'' Buchholz said. ''It was hard on the town.''

Former board member Marlene Galow, who served a two-year term starting in 2000, said the deal for the facility seemed sketchy even at the time of the purchase.

The price ''just kept going up and up and up, and when you asked why the price went up, you couldn't get any legitimate answers from anybody,'' she said.

The building was originally tagged for sale at about $5.3 million, but ended up costing the town about $7.5 million.

The cost of litigation could cost the town $500,000, but Galow said it would be money well spent.

''It's worth every penny to find out what happened with the purchase of the police court facility,'' she said.

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