He’s making an attempt to pillage the village.
The creator of well-liked cheese-buff model Pirate’s Booty is staging an “tried coup” of a Lengthy Island village — as residents speculate he’s making an attempt to get again at them because of a longstanding beef.
Robert Ehrlich, 66, alongside a three-man crew, stormed into Sea Cliff’s village corridor Monday, declaring that he was its new mayor and everybody was fired earlier than he demanded an workplace.
City officers say the standoff lasted about an hour — with police finally displaying as much as diffuse the state of affairs earlier than Ehrlich and his fellow insurrectionists left peacefully with out being arrested.
“He’s f–king loopy,” one Sea Cliff resident, who requested to stay nameless for worry of authorized retaliation, advised The Publish Friday — the day Ehrlich was seen waving an enormous American flag on the streets of the Nassau County enclave.
“It was an tried coup.”
He and different villagers mentioned they imagine that is merely Ehrlich’s means of retaliating in opposition to the village after defeating him in a 2003 federal lawsuit by which the Pirate’s Booty founder accused officers of harassing the native companies he owned as a result of he was Jewish.
Ehrlich was ordered to pay Sea Cliff $900,000 in authorized charges, later suing the lawyer who represented him for malpractice — a case that was dismissed.
And if that wasn’t barnacles sufficient, the village is about to carry elections Tuesday, with Mayor Elena Villafane working unopposed for the part-time seat — not less than till Ehrlich declared himself a write-in candidate after his stunt.
Villafane, who was elected in 2021 after serving as a trustee for a number of years, had been collaborating within the assembly nearly and rushed over after being knowledgeable of Ehrlich’s tried takeover.
“At one level, he says to me, ‘You’re not the mayor anymore. I’m the mayor. And in the event you spend one other cent, it’ll be thought-about embezzlement,’” Villafane recounted to The Publish Friday.
She mentioned she provided to make a replica of his petition and submit it to the village clerk to be evaluated and processed.
“This chair says ‘mayor,’ not ‘Elena Villafane,’” she defined.
“If individuals wish to dissolve their authorities, they need to be capable to.”
Ehrlich, although, didn’t hand over a petition and gave the impression to be clutching some form of “manifesto” that contained all his concepts for his mayoralty, Villafane famous.
“He wouldn’t even let me contact the envelope,” she mentioned, including that he mentioned, “I’m not giving it to you, you’re not the mayor.”
Villafane tried to calm Ehrlich down, and tried to remind him that that they had beforehand met.
“You don’t know me,” Ehrlich he mentioned.
“I mentioned, ‘You do know me, you’ve sued me.’ He checked out me for the primary time and he mentioned, ‘Oh, that’s proper you’re antisemitic,’” Villafane recounted.
Most residents totally help Villafane, who was elected in 2021 after serving as a trustee for a number of years.
“I’ve lived in Sea Cliff for 53 years,” mentioned Phil Como, a volunteer firefighter within the neighborhood. “I might put her both No. 1 or No. 2 in one of the best mayor class.
“We have now a wonderful board, we offer glorious companies, our price range is fairly tight, our taxes are pretty cheap, we’ve good code enforcement and zoning — so I can’t perceive why would a person so profitable chooses to hone in on a village that’s run fairly fantastically,” he continued.
Some villagers, nonetheless, see potential in Ehrlich’s management and should contemplate writing him in regardless of the Sea Cliff’s success below Villafane.
“I feel he’d do a terrific job as a result of he’s confirmed himself within the subject of enterprise with Pirate’s Booty, and he ran that like a good ship,” Tim Ayres, a Sea Cliff resident, advised Information 12 on Thursday.
Ehrlich didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark, however he posted a video on the Sea Cliff Residents Fb web page.
“No matter they’re saying about me is flawed,” he proclaimed.
“What I stand for is outside seating and a day care heart by the previous water firm that’s sponsored by the village so dad and mom can go to work and never fear about their kids,” he continued.
“I’ve so many nice concepts — I like Sea Cliff from the underside of my coronary heart, and I don’t need this to go the flawed means,” Ehrlich mentioned, insisting he has a giant coronary heart and is beneficiant and urged residents to come back meet him and see for themselves.
“I like Sea Cliff greater than anyone. I’ve lived my life right here.”
Ehrlich claims that he was empowered by the Citizen Empowerment Act, a little-known state regulation, to kind what he referred to as the brand new “Integrated Village of Sea Cliff Residents,” that he was now accountable for.
“Upon arrival, Ehrlich introduced an announcement falsely asserting his authority as mayor,” the village mentioned in an announcement launched on Fb after the confrontation.
“When knowledgeable that this declare was invalid and unsupported by regulation, he was requested to depart Village Corridor at which level, Mr. Ehrlich and his associates grew to become more and more confrontational.”
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