Most mornings, I need to make a left turn from Viola Road onto New Hempstead Road in Ramapo.

This has proven to be a dance with danger and frustration as drivers are forced to cut off approaching cars or drive through the traffic light as it turns red. Drivers can easily sit at the intersection for three or four lights as they wait to make the turn.

I can flat out say, trying to make that left is the most stressful part of my daily driving.

They’ve been studying this intersection for years. Passing drivers have frequently seen the car counters – people who watch the traffic flow and appear to be literally noting the number of vehicles and the efficiency of movement on clipboards.

The worst part about it? Left-turn arrows are in place at the other three turning points, so, yeah, it’s just the left I – and scores of other drivers – need to make that’s messed up.

But finally, the problem has been solved.

I was pretty happy the other day when I approached the light and saw a bright green left-turn arrow that was going my way.

Ramapo Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence said the light was upgraded by the state after he requested the Department of Transportation to study the intersection.

“The modification to the signal greatly impacts upon driver safety,” St. Lawrence said. “The improved conditions are already noticeable for motorists making left turns.”

This blogger has noticed that posts with the name of Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence draw an extraordinary amount of attention.

It’s not like Mr. St. Lawrence can drop his last name and be known around the world as Chris, ala Elvis or Ali, but hey, when it comes to name recognition, St. Lawrence rings a lot of bells in Ramapo.

It’s not like that everywhere. I recall doing a story in Clarkstown a few years back, when the woman I was interviewing forgot the name of her town supervisor, who by then had already served a few four-year terms.

“You know who he is,” she said, “that tall, nice-looking man. Vanderhoef’s his name.”

She was close. Charles Holbrook, then the Clarkstown supervisor, was tall, and so was C. Scott Vanderhoef, who was then and still is the county executive.

Back to the present…It seems that a blog only needs to have St. Lawrence in it to draw out heated exchanges between his supporters and detractors, while a reasonable question posted by the blogger is ignored.

Why is that? What makes St. Lawrence verbal dynamite?

The July periodic campaign finance disclosure forms were due yesterday for any person or committee with an active account.

So while we focused primarily on this year’s candidates I took a peek at the statements of County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef and some of his rumored 2009 opponents.

Vanderhoef, a Republican now serving his fourth term in office, brought in more than $105,800 in contributions in the last six months—more than any of the people running for statewide office this year. He reported a balance of $166,577. 27 after opening with more than $131,200.

Much of his money came from corporate donations and several of his expenditures were on fundraisers.

Among the rumored challengers is Orangetown Town Supervisor Thom Kleiner, who’s getting really good at being charmingly coy when asked about the subject.

He raised nearly $41,000 this period, ending with a balance of $112,788.28. Ramapo Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence took in nearly $76,000 and Clarkstown Supervisor Alex Gromack took in nearly $61,500.

That’s big money in an off-year compared with Haverstraw Town Supervisor Howard Phillips who took in just more than $1,200 and Stony Point Supervisor Phil Marino who raised about half that.

All five supervisor seats, now filled by Democrats, are up next year as well.

Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence will look to mend splintered fences with his police department tomorrow night by publicly taking back his criticism of Police Officer Jonathan Quinn.

St. Lawrence said tonight that he will make amends to Quinn personally and publicly, saying he will apologize if his calling Quinn insensitive to a Hasidic woman’s religious views during an arrest were insensitive to the officer and department.

A few weeks ago St. Lawrence fueled a firestorm across the town by calling Quinn’s decision to photograph Shifra Cohen, 24, of Monsey, without her wig insensitive. Married Hasidic women wear a wig for modesty and don’t allow men other than their husband to touch them. Quinn also fingerprinted her.

Cohen and her husband, Joseph, are accuse of stealing more than $8,000 in Medicaid by underreporting their income on their applications. They were two of more than 40 people charged with fraud, but have drawn attention because they complained about Shifra Cohen’s treatment at booking.

Some Hasidic Jewish leaders threatened a demonstration for his actions. St. Lawrence met with community leaders and Cohen and her husband and cooled off the community.

Now he’s looking to cool hot feeling among police officers and will discuss the issues tomorrow night.

“If my comments were insensitive to the officer, I will apologize to the officer and the department,” St. Lawrence told The Journal News tonight. “I will make it clear that the officer did follow the training he was taught. My intent is to take the silver lining out of this incident and strengthen our policy, procedures and general orders and our training.”

St. Lawrence said he will meet personally with Quinn, who has been advised by his union president, Officer Dennis Procter, to keep a low profile and not talk about the incident.

St. Lawrence said a fact-finding report by Capt. James Quinn, no relation to the officer, will not be completed by tomorrow’s meeting, since additional people need to be interviewed, including dectectives with the Rockland District Attorney’s Office. St. Lawrence said the report will state Officer Jonathan Quinn followed the department’s written procedures.

Procter and many residents already have argued Officer Jonathan Quinn followed procedures and the Hasidic Jewish community should not get special treatment from the police. The incident has added to already tense feelings between some Hasidic Jews and some secular residents and other Jews, some religious and some non-religious.

In response to the incident, St. Lawrence has called for the police to have sensitive training on the Hasidic community, with Rabbi Simon Lauber of Bikur Cholim showing officers a video on the community. St. Lawrence also said he wants to extend the training to other ethnic communities.

St. Lawrence said that when he speaks at tomorrow night’s meeting, he wants to make it clear his goal is to improve the police department and strength relationships with the town’s diverse communities.

He also said he would make it clear that the police department’s video system was broken for some time. He said the system was not tampered with by the police when Cohen was being processed – as he said some conspiracy theorists have proffered.

St. Lawrence has won elections as supervisor on the strength of overwhelming support from the Hasidic community and some Orthodox Jewish communities. His support for housing for the religious communities and other services has led to opposition from many non-religious areas of the town.

The town of Ramapo is negotiating with the privately owned Ramapo Land Co. for the purchase of property that includes a hamlet.

The hamlet, known as Ramapo, is tucked between Route 17, the New York State Thruway and Torne Valley Road. It includes 16 houses that are now owned by the Ramapo Land Co.

Christopher St. Lawrence, the town supervisor, estimates that rental income from the houses could bring the town $250,000 annually.

Do you think the town should be a landlord?

Just wondering how folks around Ramapo feel about a street clock that the town paid to install in Suffern, one of seven installations that Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence said were part of a beautification campaign.

Suffern Mayor John Keegan thinks the town ought to remove the recorded greeting: “This is Ramapo Supervisor Christopher P. St. Lawrence wishing you a lovely day.”

Tax dollars funded the clock – about $30,000 – and it was installed with Suffern’s permission.

Mayor John Keegan was initially enthusiastic – saw it as a nice, no-expense deal for the village – but now he isn’t so sure.

Some folks commenting on the story saw it as self-promotion by St. Lawrence.

What do you think?

Here’s a video for those who haven’t seen the clock:
Download:

Download:

• Rockland’s first baby of the year born at Nyack Hospital


• Rockland’s ‘Crow House’ named national historic site


• Pearl River family of 4 loses home in fire


• Repairs to weak spots on Tappan Zee Bridge will begin in spring

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Three weeks after the Preserve Ramapo slate was swamped by the incumbent Democrats and their lock on the Monsey area bloc vote, plans are being made to seek criminal prosecution against those who tampered with the challengers’ election signs.

Preserve Ramapo activist Michael Castelluccio said the Rockland District Attorney’s Office and the state Board of Elections would be contacted because it seemed to Castelluccio that the tampering was meant to deliberately mislead voters.

Duplicates of Preserve Ramapo signs were posted on Election Day, some directing voters to the wrong ballot line and the wrong Web site.

Weeks earlier, bogus yellow and green Preserve Ramapo signs began popping up, calling the group Perverse Ramapo, and accusing it of having a racist agenda targeting the Jewish ultra orthodox community in and around Monsey.

The Ramapo town police investigated the most recent incident, and no charges were filed.

One of the people putting up the signs was Jacob Wagschal of Monsey, according to a police report obtained this week by The Journal News. Wagschal first told the police that the bogus signs were made by Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence “to throw off the Preserve Ramapo voters.”

“Wagschal then changed his story again,” the report stated, and he said “the signs were made by members of the community to help the supervisor’s election and that Wagschal and his friends were placing them throughout the town for the community and not for Supervisor St. Lawrence as Wagschal initially stated.”

St. Lawrence said he had nothing to do with the incident. He thought was a matter of people being foolishly overzealous.

Over the past few years, Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence directed his clout Suffern’s way on numerous occasions, for what would seem to be the benefit of residents.

He worked to get Avon Products to keep its research and development operation going in the village. He arranged to acquire the Tilcon quarry as a way to reduce the threat of flooding in the Squire’s Gate neighborhood. He offered to pony up some town cash to help buy the Schwarz property and keep it from development. He also worked to keep power plants out of the nearby Torne Valley.

So why didn’t more villagers vote for St. Lawrence? Six polling places had him lagging Anthony Mele, his unsuccessful challenger, by 386 votes, 940 to 554, according to unoffical results still being verified this week.

Why?

Ramapo officials today said the town supervisor met with commissioners from the Moleston Fire District and chiefs from the Hillcrest Fire Department last week (March 29, to be exact). Everyone assured everyone that fire service to New Square would continue, uninterrupted.

Everything came to a head after a fire Feb. 7, in which two residential buildings were destroyed. In March, the Moleston district asked the town to schedule a public hearing on removing the village from its jurisdiction, citing fire and safety code violations persisting for years.

According to a release issued today by Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, the town is researching whether they could start a “public safety loan program” to help building owners install sprinkler systems, smoke alarms and other such “safety devices.”

Hillcrest Fire Chief Tim Wren said, in the release, that the town and department had “started to formulate a plan to correct some long standing issues and improve fire safety for residents and firefighters.”