NEW WINDSOR – The war of words is heating up between the Orange County Industrial development Agency and the state appointed monitor after his veto of the IDA’s financial incentive plan for the proposed Amazon Wawayanda distribution center.
The law firm representing the IDA has written to State Inspector General Lucy Lang, who appointed monitor Brian Sanvidge, to “immediately remove him” for violations of the law, including that he issued his decision after the 72-hour deadline during which he may issue an opinion.
IDA Executive Director Bill Fioravanti questioned Sanvidge’s decision and its timing.
“The monitor sat through the entire review of this application and was an active participant in the approval process, never once raising a concern until after the fact when the senator (James Skoufis) instructed him to do so,” Fioravanti said in an email. “To now attack our approach weeks after his veto is not only desperate but troubling.”
Sanvidge, meanwhile, had his own response to the IDA’s claim.
- “The executive director, looking to have the monitor removed, over my exercising my right to issue the notice of violation, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money to fight oversight and monitoring and transparency, is unconscionable,” he told Mid-Hudson News.
IDA Board Chairman Jeff Crist, also responding by email, said, “It is critical that we safeguard the process by which the IDA approves economic incentives. We have lost all confidence that Mr. Sanvidge can oversee that process with independence and integrity.”
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