WESTERLO — The debate over the chicken and the egg matters little if the egg is cracked and the chicken is hatched and both are here to stay.

Such is the case in Westerlo where political tensions have been multiplied and potentially crystallized by the town board’s decision to pass Local Law #3 late last month, abolishing the town’s planning board over what were nominally concerns about efficiency, but which critics have said from the start was a means of punishing “rogue” planning board members, as Supervisor Matt Kryzak would later describe them. 

Former Westerlo Planning Board Chairman Beau Loendorf — who had resigned prior to the introduction of the local law, only to attempt to try to rejoin without the town board’s permission, accelerating the law’s passage — wrote a letter to the Enterprise editor this week complaining about the town attorney’s role in the proceedings, and bemoaning how “quickly” such a major decision was made.

Kryzak and Town Attorney George McHugh took the opportunity to respond at length through The Enterprise, highlighting ongoing disagreements over matters of both process and principle. 

Board and attorney involvement

The first claim that Loendorf makes in his letter, which has been published in full alongside this story, is that the town is being led primarily by McHugh rather than the town board.

“The only thing ‘going rogue’ in the town of Westerlo is our town board, which is being led by an inept lawyer, who instead of giving advice when called upon, directs the town supervisor on what to do next,” Loendorf wrote. 

McHugh, who was ousted as the town supervisor of Coeymans and through that role became embroiled in significant planning-related controversies, has been a lightning rod in Westerlo since his appointment as attorney in 2021. His critics — who include town board members Josh Beers and Peter Mahan, both of whom voted against abolishing the planning board — feel, by and large, that McHugh oversteps his role.

The portrayal of McHugh as a kind of shadow-leader in the town is a common one and was an issue in the last local election as Kryzak backed keeping McHugh as town attorney. Kryzak’s challengers for the supervisor’s post — former planning board member Angela Carkner and Donald Morin — wanted to replace McHugh.

Kryzak this week disputed the characterization, telling The Enterprise in an email that the town attorney merely gives legal advice to the town board, which has the ultimate decision-making authority. 

“Listening to sound legal advice does not in any way put the Town Attorney in charge of the town,” he wrote. “The Town attorney does not have the power to vote or make decisions on behalf of the town. That power falls under the jurisdiction of the Town Board.”

Loendorf also takes broad aim at the town board in his letter, alleging that the members have been barely engaged with the planning board during his time as chairman, and that his letter is meant to counterbalance what he describes as a smearing of his character, having allegedly been portrayed in the town as “someone who gave up on the planning board.”

“During the process of wanting to remove the planning board, not one town board member ever reached out to me, as chairman, asking about the implications I thought would happen if they were to do so” the letter reads. “Even when I asked the town supervisor to call me to chat, never did I receive a message or call back. The lack of transparency has been a constant theme for this administration … I am saddened to see what is happening in our town with our leadership but even more scared to see how quickly the process happened.”

Kryzak is a Republican and Loendorf is a Democrat in a town where most voters are enrolled as Democrats but in recent years the town board has been dominated by the GOP.

Kryzak pushed back on Loendorf’s accusations, saying that, for one, he has followed planning  decisions since becoming involved in local government in 2018, before he was elected to the town board, and that he has spent “countless hours researching and following the training prescribed to both our planning and zoning boards over the past several years.” 

Kryzak, a businessman, also pointed out that he was deeply involved in the town’s renewable energy laws as one of the authors, and was a member of the town board when the comprehensive plan was completely overhauled. 

“Myself, and other members of the Town Board have done our due diligence in understanding basic land use and zoning principles,” he wrote. “Town Board member Amie Burnside was also a member of the ZBA prior to being elected to the Town Board. On several instances Town Board members have attended Planning Board meetings during Mr. Loendorf's term as chairman. If you go back and read the Planning Board Meeting minutes you can see who attended and what dates.”

Loendorf’s letter also criticizes McHugh for attending only about half of the planning board’s meetings. 

Kryzak responded that the attorney is not required to be present at meetings and that much of the attorney’s work is done outside of meetings, including briefing board leaders before any given meeting when appropriate. He also said that it’s a board leader’s responsibility to seek out the attorney’s counsel. 

Loendorf’s resignation

While emails shared with The Enterprise by Kryzak last month suggest that Loendorf’s resignation was initially framed around family matters, in his letter, Loendorf connects the resignation to a planning board meeting in May where McHugh had complained that the board was not heeding his advice on an application made by a powder-coating business, and abruptly left the meeting, allegedly getting caught up in a verbal altercation with town board member Josh Beers shortly after. 

“I struggled with the drama between the town attorney and the town board, and at times felt we were never getting accurate representation from our town attorney,” Loendorf wrote in his letter, after explaining that he drafted his resignation the night of the May meeting. 

The resignation was submitted on May 22, emails show, with an effective date of “June 2024.”

As The Enterprise has previously reported, New York State Law says that effective dates cannot be more than 30 days past the date a resignation is submitted, and that, if they are, the resignation instead takes effect in 30 days.

The New York State Department of State told The Enterprise earlier this month that it “cannot finally determine what is the effective date of the planning board chairperson’s resignation,” and that the issue would have to be taken up by a “court of competent jurisdiction.” 

On June 25, emails suggest, Town Clerk Karla Weaver notified the board that Loendorf had rescinded his application and instructed her to call a special meeting of the planning board for July 1. 

McHugh had responded to this in an email telling Weaver that only the town board had the authority to withdraw the application and that the call for the meeting was illegitimate. 

State law says that a “resignation delivered or filed pursuant to this section, whether effective immediately or at a specified future date, may not be withdrawn, canceled, or amended except by consent of the officer to whom it is delivered or body with which it is filed.”

Loendorf says in his letter that he wanted to rescind his application after learning that Kryzak, McHugh, confidential secretary Lisa DeGroff who chairs the Westerlo Republican Committee, and town board member Lorraine Pecylak had attended the Albany County Planning Board meeting when that board was reviewing the powder-coating business’s application and shared their concerns about the business. 

The county planning board ultimately did not offer its approval of the project, meaning that the Westerlo Planning Board could grant the special-use permit only with supermajority approval — four out of its five members. 

Loendorf says that those in attendance gave “numerous false details” on the application. 

Kryzak told The Enterprise this week that those meetings are open to the public and that the county planning board welcomes comments on applications that it’s reviewing. 

“If the Westerlo Planning Board was confident in their decision they could have attended the Albany County Planning Board meeting to answer questions and support the application in question,” Kryzak said. “I also attended the Albany County Planning Board meeting to answer questions and support Local Law # 3 of 2024 [to abolish the town’s planning board] which was under review by the Albany County Planning Board.”

A recording of the meeting shows that the county planners were concerned about the lack of detail in the powder-coating business’s application; Kryzak said that, had the planning board taken the town attorney’s advice to carry out a State Environmental Quality Review and have the town engineer look it over, there would have been enough information in the application for an approval.

However, the Westerlo officials in attendance at the county meeting had floated vague environmental concerns, and the county’s decision cited environmental impacts of the project and the incompatibility of its “industrial nature” with the Rural Development/Agricultural zoning in the area.

Former planning board member Angela Carkner — who, like Loendorf, had run unsuccessfully for the town board last year on a platform opposite Kryzak’s — told The Enterprise that the industrial aspect of the process, which is sandblasting, occurs offsite.

Meanwhile, the United States Environmental Protection Agency holds up powder-coating as the most environmentally friendly coating since such businesses “emit virtually no VOCs, do not require the use of organic solvents in the coatings, and retain the benefits of traditional coatings.”

Attempt to contact 

With regard to Beau Loendorf’s attempt to contact him about the law to abolish Westerlo’s planning board, Kryzak said that Loendorf was no longer the planning board chairman at that point.

“Mr. Loendorf contacted me on June 25th in an email from his Planning Board email account to chat about ‘a few things.’ This was one day after Town Clerk [Karla] Weaver illegally withdrew his resignation that was received on May 22nd stating an effective date of June 2024,” Kryzak said.

“If the original intention of Mr. Loendorf's resignation was to remain as Chairman of the planning board until the end of June to assist in the ‘transition,’ why was he absent from the June meeting?” he went on. “The effective date listed on his resignation letter is ambiguous? If the resignation date is not clearly stated, the resignation is effective upon receipt. That would have made the resignation effective May 22nd. 

“Mr. Loendorf's resignation was received on May 22nd  and the 30 day window for the Town Board to withdraw the resignation expired on June 21st. Town Clerk Weaver illegally withdrew the resignation on June 24th, three days beyond the legal statute. The Town Clerk did not have the authority to withdraw the resignation of Mr. Loendorf.”

McHugh’s response

McHugh offered a more general response to the claims in Loendorf’s letter, in an email to The Enterprise.

“Under the failed leadership of former Westerlo Planning Board Chairman Beau Loendorf, the Westerlo Planning Board completely disregarded the advice of the Town Engineer and the Town Attorney,” McHugh said. “The board compounded this error in judgment by proceeding with an incomplete application and then approved the Special Use Permit application in less than 30 days. 

“In doing so, the Westerlo Planning Board completely ignored the Westerlo Town Code, New York State Law, and the State Environmental Quality Review Act. Thankfully, the Albany County Planning Board, acting as a check and balance in this process, Disapproved the Westerlo Planning Boards actions and cited a number of valid reasons for their decision. 

“The unlawful actions taken by the Westerlo Planning Board during the Boosted Coatings Special Use Permit application review, together with their history of reckless disregard for the law and process, served only to delay the Boosted Coatings application and unnecessarily expose the Town of Westerlo to legal liability.” 

Loendorf told The Enterprise that he did take McHugh’s advice in May and have the applicant fill out a long-form state environmental quality review assessment, rather than the short-form, as a recording of the meeting verifies.

However, Loendorf was uncertain whether it was necessary for the town engineer to review the application for a fee, estimated to be around $1,500, so he planned to have the board vote on the matter in June, a meeting that Loendorf ultimately did not attend.

“For him to say I have failed leadership, how can one have failed leadership when they were not even present for a meeting?” Loendorf asked. “ … If the town attorney had been present at the meeting, he could have advised the board about the Westerlo Planning Board on the Westerlo Town Code, New York State Law, and the State Environmental Quality Review Act.”