SPRING VALLEY – For the second time in three years, dozens of residents rallied in the municipal hall parking lot Tuesday and railed against a movement to dissolve the village government.
Even though the Village Clerk’s Office rejected a petition seeking a public vote on dissolution, many residents said they remained concerned. Despite the government’s dysfunction, along with financial and social issues, a good portion of the community wants to keep the government intact.
“We want to keep this issue in the forefront of your minds,” said Vivian Street, one of the rally organizers and a former Spring Valley NAACP president. “Three years ago, they didn’t have enough signatures for a public vote. They came back. We must be vigilant in case they try again.”
Tim Scott, a former Ramapo Planning Board member who described himself as a truth-teller, spoke about developers and landlords buying up properties and displacing people amid the silence from most elected officials.
“The village has not been taken over, the village has been sold,” Scott said. “This is an embarrassment. They are taking over an entire village. You don’t see disbanding a village in Nyack, Suffern, Haverstraw.”
Two Democrats who won primaries in June and are favored for election in November also spoke about community unity and keeping the traditions of the village alive. Schenley Vital won the mayoral primary while Sherry McGill won a primary for trustee.
Why did the Spring Valley dissolution petition fail?
A public vote on dissolution was blocked earlier this month by village board-appointed clerk, Diana Montgomery, who found that the petition lacked the required number of valid signatures for a public vote on Election Day, Nov. 4, officials said.
Village resident Joseph Fuchs filed the petition on July 1. He and his associates can appeal Montgomery’s July 11 rejection. Fuchs didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Montgomery found many of the signers either didn’t live in the village or were not registered voters. Montgomery released the petition and her letter to Fuchs on Tuesday in response to a July 2 request under the New York State Freedom of Information Act.
In her letter to Fuchs, Montgomery wrote she couldn’t verify with the Board of Elections if witnesses to the nearly 3,000 signatures were registered to vote. Her rejections, she wrote, left only 1,024 valid signatures. The required number was 1,302.
Trustee Yisroel Eisenbach and outgoing Mayor Alan Simon have said they oppose dissolving the village, although they played no role in the petition process. Trustee Joseph Gross attended the rally, but he didn’t speak and stayed off to the side.
Pro-village forces wary of movement to dissolve government
Opponents of dissolution have said they don’t trust that the issue has been resolved, which led to Tuesday’s educational rally outside village offices.
In an email to residents announcing the event, organizers wrote: “Although the Petition that was filed on July 1, 2025 to ‘Dissolve the Village of Spring Valley’, was ultimately rejected on July 11, 2025, it is important as a Community for us to meet, to discuss the devastating impact that future Dissolution Attempts, would have on the ‘Residents of the Village of Spring Valley.'”
One of the group’s goals is to meet with Ramapo and Clarkstown officials to discuss what could happen if the dissolution occurs, Street said.
Street and other speakers also emphasized they wanted to “remind folks to know what they are signing before they sign.” If they didn’t understand the petition or document, they said, they should ask questions.
McGill said this was a time for celebration but not to become docile.
“This is a victory, but also a reminder we need to stay strong as a community. We need to stay engaged,” she said.
The rally drew members of the village employees’ union who carried signs such as “Pay Your Village Work Force” and “We Support Keeping Our Village.”
What if the village is dissolved?
If the village is disbanded under the Government Reorganization and Citizen Empowerment Act, state law mandates that Ramapo would take primary control of policing, pay off the village’s debts, maintain the streets, parks, and recreation programs, decide zoning and development issues, and provide other taxpayer services.
The main reason given for dissolution is financial, removing the property tax burden from the local village residents and having services paid by a usually more affluent and larger townwide population. Spring Valley has an ethnically and culturally diverse population and is considered a predominantly rent-paying, working-class village with pockets of low-income residents.
The 2022 dissolution petition never came to a public vote.
The board oversees a 2½-square-mile village with a population based on the 2020 census of 33,066, a 5.5% increase in population since 2010 due to a growing Orthodox Jewish community. Many believe the population, when including non-reporting residents and non-citizens, tops 50,000 people.
Steve Lieberman covers government, breaking news, courts, police, and investigations. Reach him at slieberm@lohud.com Twitter: @lohudlegal Read more articles and bio. Our local coverage is only possible with support from our readers.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Spring Valley residents again say ‘no’ to dissolving the village government during rally
Reporting by Steve Lieberman, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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