THE EVOLUTION OF JUDICIAL TYRANNY IN THE UNITED STATES:

"If the judges interpret the laws themselves, and suffer none else to interpret, they may easily make, of the laws, [a shredded] shipman's hose!" - King James I of England, around 1616.

“No class of the community ought to be allowed freer scope in the expression or publication of opinions as to the capacity, impartiality or integrity of judges than members of the bar. They have the best opportunities of observing and forming a correct judgment. They are in constant attendance on the courts. Hundreds of those who are called on to vote never enter a court-house, or if they do, it is only at intervals as jurors, witnesses or parties. To say that an attorney can only act or speak on this subject under liability to be called to account and to be deprived of his profession and livelihood by the very judge or judges whom he may consider it his duty to attack and expose, is a position too monstrous to be entertained for a moment under our present system,” Justice Sharwood in Ex Parte Steinman and Hensel, 95 Pa 220, 238-39 (1880).

“This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that [the rejected attorney candidate] has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows not only that [the rejected attorney candidate] has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost.

It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.” In Re Anastaplo, 18 Ill. 2d 182, 163 N.E.2d 429 (1959), cert. granted, 362 U.S. 968 (1960), affirmed over strong dissent, 366 U.S. 82 (1961), Justice Black, Chief Justice Douglas and Justice Brennan, dissenting.

" I do not believe that the practice of law is a "privilege" which empowers Government to deny lawyers their constitutional rights. The mere fact that a lawyer has important responsibilities in society does not require or even permit the State to deprive him of those protections of freedom set out in the Bill of Rights for the precise purpose of insuring the independence of the individual against the Government and those acting for the Government”. Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820 (1961), Justice Black, dissenting.

"The legal profession must take great care not to emulate the many occupational groups that have managed to convert licensure from a sharp weapon of public defense into blunt instrument of self-enrichment". Walter Gellhorn, "The Abuse of Occupational Licensing", University of Chicago Law Review, Volume 44 Issue 1, September of 1976.

“Because the law requires that judges no matter how corrupt, who do not act in the clear absence of jurisdiction while performing a judicial act, are immune from suit, former Judge Ciavarella will escape liability for the vast majority of his conduct in this action. This is, to be sure, against the popular will, but it is the very oath which he is alleged to have so indecently, cavalierly, baselessly and willfully violated for personal gain that requires this Court to find him immune from suit”, District Judge A. Richard Caputo in H.T., et al, v. Ciavarella, Jr, et al, Case No. 3:09-cv-00286-ARC in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Document 336, page 18, November 20, 2009. This is about judges who were sentencing kids to juvenile detention for kickbacks.


Tuesday, November 10, 2026

Three New Lawsuits: Public Funds, Industrial Safety, and a Judiciary Turning Against Its Own Critics

Over the past several weeks, I have commenced three new lawsuits in New York.  

The first concerns the misuse of public funds through a municipal insurance reciprocal.  

The second challenges a massive lithium-ion battery energy storage project proposed for the New York City watershed. 

The third concerns disability discrimination by the New York State Unified Court System, the denial of constitutional access to justice, and the treatment of investigative journalists who expose judicial misconduct.


The three lawsuits involve municipal law, insurance fraud, constitutional restrictions on public expenditures, environmental and industrial safety, nuisance law, disability discrimination, judicial disqualification, and First Amendment retaliation.


They also concern the relationships among government officials, private corporations, municipal insurers, and the law firms representing them—relationships that have increasingly become the subject of my investigative journalism.


The first week of November was particularly eventful.


On November 2, 2026, I commenced a federal lawsuit concerning the Fraser Battery Energy Storage System.


On November 4, I commenced an action challenging disability discrimination within the New York State court system.


Then, on November 9, Supreme Court Justice Christopher Baker issued a series of sua sponte, ex parte decisions dismissing four of our civil actions and imposing a statewide restriction on our ability to commence future litigation without judicial permission.


But there was a rather important problem with the timing.


**We had already gotten our foot in the courthouse door five days earlier, by commencing an action challenging precisely this kind of denial of access to justice.**


Baker's November 9 decisions have now become additional evidence relevant to that pending litigation.


## I. Neroni v. NYMIR: Public Money, the Constitutional Gift and Loan Clause, and Insurance Fraud


In October 2026, I commenced a civil action in Nassau County Supreme Court concerning the activities of New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal (NYMIR).


NYMIR is a municipal insurance reciprocal through which participating local governments pool resources to insure against specified liabilities, including the costs of legal representation.


Municipal liability insurance serves an important function. Counties, towns, villages, and their officials are frequently sued, and the costs of defending litigation can be substantial.


But the expenditure of municipal insurance funds raises an obvious question: **Who is entitled to receive publicly financed legal representation, what representations are made to obtain that financing, and who is accountable when public resources are used to satisfy private obligations?**


### General Municipal Law § 51: The Taxpayer's Right to Protect the Public Treasury


New York General Municipal Law § 51 provides a distinctive mechanism for challenging illegal municipal expenditures.


Subject to the statutory standing requirements, taxpayers may bring an action to prevent unlawful official conduct, waste or injury to municipal property, and illegal expenditures of public money. The statute also permits appropriate relief for restoring improperly expended funds to the municipal treasury.


The significance of this mechanism is that taxpayers may seek judicial intervention even when the municipal officials responsible for protecting public resources have failed to do so.


The taxpayer acts to protect the municipality's financial interests, and recovered public money belongs to the municipality.


In *Mesivta of Forest Hills Institute v. City of New York*, 58 N.Y.2d 1014 (1983), the New York Court of Appeals addressed the limits of taxpayer actions under § 51.


My NYMIR action presents concrete questions concerning the use of municipal insurance resources, the legal basis for expenditures, the recipients of payments, and the nature of the services financed.


### The New York Constitution Prohibits Gifts of Public Money to Private Parties


Article VIII, § 1 of the New York Constitution—the Gift and Loan Clause—prohibits municipalities from giving or lending public money or property to private individuals and entities, or lending municipal credit in their aid, subject to constitutional exceptions.


This restriction is directly relevant when municipal resources are used to finance legal expenses.


Where public funds are applied to satisfy private obligations without lawful authorization, the constitutional prohibition becomes implicated.


General Municipal Law § 51 supplies a potential taxpayer enforcement mechanism, while Article VIII, § 1 supplies a substantive constitutional limitation on municipal expenditures.


### Penal Law Article 176: Insurance Fraud


New York Penal Law Article 176 addresses insurance fraud.


Section 176.05 defines fraudulent insurance acts through specified conduct involving knowingly false material information, or concealment of material information, in insurance-related documents, with intent to defraud.


The subsequent provisions establish degrees of criminal liability, including distinctions based on the amount of the wrongful insurance benefit.


When insurance financing is obtained through false representations concerning the nature of a claim, the conduct of an insured individual, or the basis for coverage, Article 176 becomes relevant.


My action therefore examines the intersection of taxpayer remedies, constitutional restrictions on municipal expenditures, and the criminal prohibition against insurance fraud.


### The Document That Prompted the Lawsuit


The immediate circumstances are straightforward.


In one of my lawsuits protecting my rights as an investigative journalist, an individual whom I had sued in a private capacity sought an award of attorney's fees against me.


In support of that application, the individual submitted a bill from NYMIR.


The individual had no entitlement, in my view, to municipal insurance coverage for the private litigation at issue.


Yet a municipal insurance bill was presented as evidence supporting the request for attorney's fees.


I am a taxpayer in the relevant municipality. I commenced the NYMIR action in Nassau County, where NYMIR maintains its principal office, and included attorneys involved in the underlying litigation.


The law firm involved is owned by the brother of New York's Chief Administrative Judge—a family connection that warrants particular attention when examining the relationships among municipal insurance, politically connected legal practices, and judicial administration.


The litigation seeks to examine the legal basis for the claimed coverage, the insurance documents, the billing arrangements, and the use of municipal resources.


**Public money does not become private money merely because it passes through an insurance reciprocal or a politically connected law firm.**


Those familiar with my litigation and investigative work know that I respond to such matters through documentary investigation and legal action.


This case is no exception.


## II. Neroni v. EDF Renewables: Nearly 768 MWh of Lithium-Ion Batteries in the New York City Watershed


On November 2, 2026, I commenced an action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York concerning the proposed Fraser Battery Energy Storage System in the Town of Hamden, Delaware County.


The project is being developed by EDF Renewables and associated entities, including Fraser Storage, LLC.


It would place a large industrial lithium-ion battery energy storage facility in a rural portion of the New York City watershed, near property owned by my family.


### Nearly 768 Megawatt-Hours


The project's December 14, 2025 Emergency Response Plan identifies 196 Tesla Megapack 2 XL battery units, each with a stated capacity of 3,916 kilowatt-hours.


The arithmetic is straightforward:


196 × 3,916 kWh = 767,536 kWh, or 767.536 MWh.


Yet public descriptions of the project have referred to considerably smaller figures, initially approximately 540 MWh and subsequently approximately 500 MWh.


The discrepancy requires examination in light of the project's actual configuration, operating parameters, emergency response requirements, and applicable fire-safety regulations.


The proposed site is surrounded by forests, wetlands, peat deposits, challenging terrain, and seasonal roads.


Hamden has no fire department of its own. Emergency response depends on volunteer fire departments serving neighboring communities.


For an industrial installation of this size, response times, water availability, access for emergency vehicles, fire containment, and prevention of environmental contamination are central public-safety concerns.


### Moss Landing: An Industrial Fire That Should Have Served as a Warning


On January 16, 2025, a major fire broke out at the Moss Landing battery energy storage facility in California.


The fire prompted evacuations, releases of combustion products, and extensive emergency response and cleanup operations.


The facility housed utility-scale lithium-ion batteries.


The incident generated litigation concerning personal injuries, environmental contamination, property damage, and the responsibilities of facility operators.


Another battery fire had occurred in the Moss Landing area in September 2022.


Lithium-ion batteries present particular challenges during thermal runaway, when cell failures can produce escalating temperatures, combustible gases, and propagation to adjacent battery components.


The safety of these facilities depends on their actual design, separation distances, detection systems, fire barriers, emergency plans, and local response capabilities.


These are matters of public safety, not merely engineering preferences.


### Nuisance Law and Preventive Judicial Relief


American tort law provides several mechanisms for addressing activities that substantially interfere with property rights or public rights.


Private nuisance concerns substantial interference with the use and enjoyment of particular property.


Public nuisance concerns substantial interference with rights common to the public.


Where the applicable legal requirements are satisfied, these doctrines can support damages and injunctive relief, including measures intended to prevent threatened injury.


My federal complaint invokes both public and private nuisance and seeks a declaration concerning the validity of contractual rights underlying the proposed project.


The litigation concerns the protection of neighboring landowners, environmental safety, and the legal authority to construct the facility.


### Conflicted Lawyers and the Industrial Development Process


Young/Sommer LLC occupies a particularly important position in the Fraser BESS story.


On March 4, 2026, the firm executed a conflict-consent arrangement concerning its simultaneous representation of the industrial project owner and the Town of Hamden.


The town is responsible for local legislation and regulatory oversight affecting the project, including permitting, inspections, and safety requirements.


Young/Sommer openly advertises its representation of industrial developers. Local reporting has also identified the firm as representing Delaware County and certain regional organizations involved in environmental and governmental matters.


The result is a serious question concerning the independence of the public-safety review process.


A developer seeks approval for a potentially hazardous industrial facility, while legal counsel associated with the developer simultaneously represents governmental bodies responsible for regulating that facility.


The concern becomes especially acute when the developer seeks to reduce the locally required separation distance from 1,000 feet to 100 feet.


That is a tenfold reduction.


The town is a relatively poor rural community whose residents may lack the financial resources to retain counsel for complex environmental and land-use litigation.


Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately for the developer—I own property in the area and possess the legal training necessary to pursue the matter.


My property could be affected by a serious industrial fire.


The conflicts of interest surrounding the project's legal representation are therefore directly relevant to the adequacy and independence of public-safety protections.


I continue to investigate these relationships through court records, Freedom of Information Law requests, technical documentation, and journalism.


## III. Neroni v. New York State Office of Court Administration: An Investigative Journalist Confronts the Judiciary She Investigates


The third action, commenced on November 4, 2026, is particularly significant because of my longstanding investigative journalism.


Since 2014, I have published *Attorney Independence and Judicial Accountability in the United States*, a legal blog devoted to judicial misconduct, conflicts of interest, judicial corruption, constitutional violations, and the accountability of judges and attorneys.


I examine the conduct of individual judges, publish judicial records, compare decisions with controlling law, and investigate the professional, political, financial, and family relationships of those exercising judicial power.


**The subject matter of my journalism is central to this litigation.**


Judges whose conduct becomes the subject of my investigations exercise control over the scheduling of my court appearances, the resolution of my ADA accommodation requests, and the imposition of sanctions restricting my access to courts.


The New York judiciary has displayed extraordinary hostility toward journalists investigating judicial misconduct. In my cases, that hostility has manifested itself through specific judicial decisions that disregard constitutional and statutory procedural protections.


### Joseph McBride: Sixteen Motions, One Morning, Three Weeks to Prepare


One of the central figures is Justice Joseph McBride, formerly the District Attorney of Chenango County.


My husband, Frederick Neroni, and I litigated against McBride during his prosecutorial career and prevailed against him in numerous proceedings.


Our professional adversarial history therefore substantially predates his judicial service.


I had also criticized McBride's prosecutorial conduct in my capacity as an investigative journalist and fellow legal professional, long before he became a judge.


When our civil cases subsequently came before him, that history was already in place.


McBride scheduled sixteen motions for a single morning, allowing me three weeks to prepare.


The materials necessary to respond to just one of those motions included approximately 3,000 pages of court records.


Those 3,000 pages had been created and reviewed by the opposing party approximately three years earlier.


My opponents were professional law firms employing multiple attorneys and support personnel.


**Not one of those firms faced the cumulative burden of preparing for sixteen motions in the same morning.**


The opposing law firms had collective resources and years of familiarity with their own materials. I was expected to review thousands of pages, research the applicable law, prepare written submissions, and address sixteen motions within three weeks.


McBride was fully informed of my disabilities and the need for reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.


Yet he found a remarkable justification for denying accommodations: my journalism.


His reasoning treated my ability to conduct investigations and publish articles as evidence that I should be capable of enduring the extraordinary litigation burdens imposed by his own scheduling decisions.


In other words, my continued intellectual and professional activity despite serious disabilities became an argument for depriving me of federal disability protections.


And the journalism at issue was specifically directed at judicial misconduct.


Thus, activity protected by the First Amendment was used against an investigative journalist seeking equal access to the courts.


### John Solak: Another Disabled Investigative Journalist Before McBride


The litigation involving investigative journalist John Solak presents another revealing example.


Solak is a defendant in *Adam Weitsman v. John Solak et al.*, pending in Broome County Supreme Court.


He has visual impairments associated with Fuchs' dystrophy and dyslexia.


On May 27, 2026, Solak requested ADA accommodations, including accessible document formats, additional time, and assistance with written materials.


On July 8, McBride addressed ADA issues during a court proceeding.


Nevertheless, he imposed a twenty-day deadline for Solak to answer the complaint.


A default determination followed on August 7, with a written decision issued on September 2.


Solak challenged the proceedings, citing the failure to properly resolve his ADA requests and the denial of a meaningful opportunity to be heard.


The circumstances are especially troubling when considered alongside the court's treatment of my own accommodation requests.


Two investigative journalists with disabilities appeared before the same judge.


In my case, journalism was invoked as a reason to deny accommodations.


In Solak's case, proceedings advanced toward default despite the court's knowledge of his visual impairments and accommodation requests.


### Judicial Elections, Campaign Contributions, and Recusal


Another issue arose in the Weitsman litigation.


A co-defendant, Jessica Miller-Cice, moved for McBride's recusal, raising questions concerning financial connections between plaintiff Adam Weitsman and McBride's judicial election campaign.


The motion identified contributions made by Weitsman to a third party who subsequently contributed to McBride's campaign.


McBride denied the recusal motion.


This issue must be understood within New York's judicial election system.


Justices of the New York Supreme Court are elected for fourteen-year terms through a process involving political-party nominations and general elections.


Article VI, § 20 of the New York Constitution requires ten years of admission to the New York bar for service as a Supreme Court justice.


Candidates are not required to pass a separate judicial qualification examination comparable to those used in some other legal systems.


Political-party support and electoral success are central to obtaining the office.


Judicial campaigns also require funding. Although New York's judicial conduct rules prohibit candidates from personally soliciting campaign contributions, fundraising through authorized campaign committees is permitted.


This creates circumstances in which persons financially connected to judicial campaigns may later appear as litigants before the judges whose elections they supported.


In *Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.*, 556 U.S. 868 (2009), the United States Supreme Court held that extraordinary financial support for a judicial election campaign by a person with a substantial interest in pending litigation can create a constitutionally intolerable probability of bias requiring judicial recusal.


The financial relationships raised in the Solak litigation therefore implicate important questions of judicial impartiality.


The combination is striking: a disabled investigative journalist defending a defamation action, campaign-finance relationships involving the plaintiff, a recusal motion, and the judge's refusal to step aside.


### George Lane: Arrested for Being Unable to Climb the Courthouse Stairs


On May 17, 2004, the United States Supreme Court decided *Tennessee v. Lane*, 541 U.S. 509.


George Lane was paraplegic and used a wheelchair.


He was required to appear in a criminal proceeding in Tennessee. The courtroom was located on the second floor of a courthouse without an elevator.


For his first appearance, Lane left his wheelchair downstairs and crawled up the stairs.


When he returned for another hearing, he refused to crawl again and declined an offer to be carried upstairs.


The judge ordered his arrest for failure to appear.


**Lane had arrived at the courthouse. He was arrested and jailed because he could not physically reach the courtroom.**


This occurred after Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.


The State of Tennessee then invoked sovereign immunity in an attempt to defeat Lane's federal civil-rights action.


By a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court held that Title II of the ADA could validly be enforced against states in cases implicating the fundamental right of access to courts.


Four justices dissented.


In the twenty-first century, the nation's highest court had to address whether federal disability-rights protections could be enforced against a state whose judicial system had jailed a wheelchair user after he refused to crawl into a courtroom.


For a country that frequently presents its constitutional democracy as a model of the rule of law, the episode is remarkable.


### The United States Has Not Ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities


The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on December 13, 2006.


Article 13 requires participating states to ensure effective access to justice for persons with disabilities, including appropriate procedural accommodations.


The United States signed the Convention on July 30, 2009, but has never ratified it.


On December 4, 2012, the United States Senate voted 61–38 in favor of consenting to ratification.


The required two-thirds majority was not achieved.


As of November 2026, the United States remains outside the Convention as a state party.


Domestic protections under the ADA remain enforceable, but the United States has declined to assume the Convention's treaty obligations.


The distinction is especially relevant to the administration of justice, where Article 13 specifically addresses procedural accommodations.


### New York's New Equal Rights Amendment: Disability Becomes an Expressly Protected Constitutional Category


On November 5, 2024, New York voters approved an Equal Rights Amendment to the state constitution.


The amendment took effect on January 1, 2025.


It expanded Article I, § 11 of the New York Constitution to expressly prohibit discrimination in civil rights on additional protected grounds, including disability.


The prohibition applies to governmental actors, including state institutions.


In June 2026, the New York Court of Appeals addressed the amendment in *Matter of Miller v. State of New York*, 2026 NY Slip Op 03907, concerning mandatory judicial retirement.


The Court held that the amendment did not repeal the constitution's specific judicial retirement provisions.


The application of the newly expanded constitutional protection to disability discrimination in the administration of court proceedings presents a different question.


**That is precisely the question we intend to test.**


Our new action examines the interaction among Title II of the ADA, the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment, and New York's newly amended Article I, § 11.


### Christopher Baker: Four Civil Actions Dismissed Within 49 Minutes of Notice of a Federal Environmental Lawsuit


The events of November 9, 2026, deserve particular attention.


That morning, I electronically filed a motion for leave to supplement a complaint against local governmental defendants, seeking to add claims arising from developments connected to my federal Fraser BESS litigation.


Justice Christopher Baker had for months refused our requests for accessible scheduling, including requests to move virtual appearances to later hours because of my husband's severe nighttime pain and related disabilities.


According to the electronic filing notifications, approximately 49 minutes after my supplemental pleading motion was filed, Baker issued a series of decisions in four separate civil actions.


The cases had different parties, different claims, and different procedural histories.


They included litigation concerning the use of our property by local governmental authorities, damage to our property, and other alleged governmental misconduct.


Baker relied on our nonappearance at an October 28 hearing.


But the circumstances of that hearing are central to the constitutional analysis.


Fourteen motions across four separate cases had been scheduled for one morning.


We had repeatedly requested ADA accommodations, including accessible scheduling, remote participation, and effective communication assistance.


The requested accommodations were not provided.


Nevertheless, Baker invoked 22 NYCRR § 202.27(b) to dismiss all four actions for nonappearance.


The October 28 proceeding had been scheduled to address motions, yet Baker used the nonappearance to terminate the underlying civil actions.


He did not conduct an individualized merits analysis of the claims in each case.


Instead, the pending motions were denied as moot following dismissal.


The sequence was extraordinary.


First, fourteen motions in four cases were placed on a single calendar despite outstanding ADA accommodation requests.


Second, nonappearance at that calendar was used to dismiss the actions.


Third, all pending motions were denied as moot because the actions had been dismissed.


Finally, Baker used the same procedural history to impose restrictions on future access to the courts throughout New York State.


**The failure to provide accessible judicial proceedings was followed by sanctions based on the resulting nonappearance—and ultimately by restrictions on our ability to seek judicial protection in future cases.**


### Four Separate Cases, One Collective Punishment


The cases differed in their parties, claims, procedural postures, and service histories.


In *Neroni v. Gransbury*, my husband had not consented to electronic filing and had not been properly served with the relevant court documents or hearing notices.


Yet the consequences of nonappearance were imposed upon him.


Baker's decisions also conflated my conduct with my husband's.


In particular, my husband's litigation rights were affected by references to my separate NYMIR action, to which he was not a party.


This is a serious defect in the individualization of judicial sanctions.


Each litigant's conduct, notice, procedural obligations, and legal position must be evaluated separately.


Instead, Baker treated us collectively and resorted to disparaging personal characterizations while leaving the substantive claims unresolved.


### Statewide Anti-Filing Injunctions Without Notice or an Opportunity to Be Heard


The most serious aspect of the November 9 decisions was the imposition of statewide anti-filing injunctions.


Baker acted sua sponte—on his own initiative.


No properly noticed motion sought the statewide filing restrictions imposed.


We received no advance notice that such sanctions were under consideration.


We were given no opportunity to submit written opposition.


No separate hearing was conducted concerning the proposed injunctions.


The restrictions nevertheless extended throughout New York State.


The Second Circuit has addressed the constitutional requirements for sua sponte filing injunctions.


In *Moates v. Barkley*, 147 F.3d 207 (2d Cir. 1998), the court held that notice and an opportunity to be heard are required before a court imposes a filing injunction on its own initiative.


In *Lau v. Meddaugh*, 229 F.3d 121 (2d Cir. 2000), the court emphasized the need for a meaningful opportunity to prepare opposition.


Baker provided neither advance notice nor an opportunity to contest the proposed sanctions before imposing them.


### Baker Relied on McBride's Order in a Case Where Baker Himself Was a Defendant


There is an additional constitutional problem.


In support of his statewide filing restrictions, Baker relied on prior anti-filing orders issued by Justice Joseph McBride.


Among those orders was a sua sponte restriction entered in litigation in which **Christopher Baker himself was a defendant**.


McBride had imposed that restriction without advance notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard.


Baker then relied on it to impose additional restrictions against the same litigants.


The sequence raises a fundamental question of judicial impartiality.


A judge used an order entered in litigation directly involving his own interests as a defendant to justify further sanctions against his litigation adversaries.


The principle *nemo judex in causa sua*—no person may be a judge in his own cause—is fundamental to due process.


In *Tumey v. Ohio*, 273 U.S. 510 (1927), the Supreme Court addressed the constitutional prohibition against adjudication by a judge with an impermissible personal interest.


In *In re Murchison*, 349 U.S. 133 (1955), the Court emphasized the necessity of an impartial tribunal.


In *Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.*, 556 U.S. 868 (2009), the Court held that an objectively intolerable probability of bias can require judicial disqualification even without proof of actual subjective bias.


In *Williams v. Pennsylvania*, 579 U.S. 1 (2016), the Supreme Court vacated a decision involving a judge who had previously participated personally in a significant prosecutorial decision in the same criminal case.


The constitutional problem in Baker's conduct arises from his exercise of judicial authority against individuals who had sued him, relying on a prior order entered in litigation in which he was a defendant.


The absence of notice and an opportunity to be heard presents a separate due-process defect.


Together, these circumstances support challenges to the constitutionality and validity of the resulting injunctions, including arguments for vacatur and legal nullity.


### And All of This Happened After We Had Already Filed the Disability Discrimination Action


The chronology is particularly revealing.


On November 2, 2026, I commenced the federal Fraser BESS litigation.


On November 4, I commenced an action challenging disability discrimination by the New York State court system.


On November 9, I filed a motion seeking leave to supplement claims against local governmental defendants with developments connected to the Fraser BESS litigation.


Approximately 49 minutes later, according to electronic filing notifications, Baker issued the series of dismissals and statewide filing restrictions.


The November 9 decisions followed the commencement of the disability discrimination action by five days.


They could not retroactively prevent that action from being commenced.


They may now be examined in the context of the pending claims concerning denial of court access, disability discrimination, retaliation for protected activity, and deprivation of due process.


**Baker attempted to close the courthouse door on November 9. We had already entered on November 4 with a lawsuit challenging the very practice of closing that door.**


### A Polite Letter to Justice Baker


On November 10, my husband informed Baker of the pending action challenging disability discrimination within the New York State court system.


He also made a rather restrained suggestion.


Rather than allow the November 9 decisions to become further evidence in the already pending constitutional litigation, perhaps Baker would prefer to vacate his orders and restore the cases to their proper procedural positions.


The request was courteous.


The implications were unmistakable.


As of this writing, there has been no response.


## IV. Three Lawsuits—and a Rather Busy Autumn


The three new actions concern distinct areas of law.


The NYMIR case addresses municipal insurance, taxpayer remedies, public expenditures, and potential insurance fraud.


The EDF Renewables case concerns industrial safety, environmental risks, property rights, and conflicts of interest in the regulatory process.


The action against the New York State court system concerns disability discrimination, access to justice, judicial impartiality, due process, and retaliation against investigative journalists who expose judicial misconduct.


Meanwhile, my investigative work continues: FOIL requests, examination of financial relationships, review of judicial decisions, research into conflicts of interest, public reporting, and preparation of further litigation.


My first university education was in linguistics. I subsequently obtained an economics degree and, after immigrating to the United States, a law degree.


All three fields have proved useful.


Linguistics helps me analyze documents, identify contradictions, and formulate precise arguments.


Economics helps me investigate financial relationships and the movement of public funds.


Law allows me to translate investigative findings into judicial claims.


Journalism makes those findings available to the public.


Social media has become another useful means of distributing the results.


I am 63 years old. After several strokes and serious illnesses, my physical working capacity is substantially limited.


Fortunately, my intellectual activity continues.


Three new lawsuits, several ongoing investigations, extensive legal research, documentary analysis, publications, and correspondence with government agencies have made this a rather productive autumn.


And another lawsuit may already be taking shape.


Local government officials, evidently displeased with my recent litigation and journalistic activity - especially reporting on Fraser BESS project and lawsuit and the traffic ticket revenue controversy - see the "Selling Justice" series of report this month - have brought bulldozers onto our property in the Catskill Mountains and are moving to take the land and pave it for parking.


Yes, bulldozers. Literally.


An interesting response to litigation concerning public accountability, property rights, and constitutional protections.


Not a particularly wise one, in my assessment.





My Father, Attorney and Human Rights Advocate Oleg Alexandrovich Lyamin: Discovering a Family History I Never Knew An unexpected encounter with my father's professional past through American journalism, Russian archival publications, and the history of international human rights advocacy


Until now, I have never publicly disclosed that my father was Oleg Alexandrovich Lyamin, a Russian high-ranking translator and interpreter, then sometime diplomat in London, then attorney and human rights advocate whose work extended across the Soviet Union, post-Soviet Russia, and Germany.

My parents separated when I was a child.  My father had another family.  My father and I had relatively little contact, and he rarely discussed his professional activities with me. Consequently, much of his career remained unknown to me, even as I eventually entered the legal profession myself.

According to one of my half-brothers, my father died 3 years ago.  That was around the time when the Russian army started bombing his native Kramatorsk, Urkaine.  

For reasons not within my control we did not communicate for the last 20 plus years of his life.  It is a pity - considering how close in our professional careers and thinking as human rights defenders we were, regardless of actual separation.  

Because of how the two mothers - my own and my half-brothers' - deliberately kept me and my father apart, something I have learnt about late in life - I became an ardent advocate for father-child relationships when I practiced as an attorney in Family Court.  It is the gravest sin that a parent or a spouse can accomplish - separate a child from his father and deprive both of their close familial and later professional connection and support.  

So, the circumstances that prompted this discovery were entirely unexpected.

I recently came across reports concerning Maria Bonzler, a Russian attorney and human rights defender from Kaliningrad, who is being prosecuted for high treason. Bonzler was among the founders of the Kaliningrad Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, an organization devoted to protecting the rights of military personnel and their families.

I remembered that my father had provided legal assistance to the Soldiers' Mothers movement, first in Russia and subsequently in Germany. I wondered whether their professional paths might have crossed.

That question led me to search for his name in historical publications.

To my surprise, I discovered references to my father in the Los Angeles Times, the Russian independent press, and archival materials of the Moscow Helsinki Group.

The documents revealed a professional history that I had never known and, perhaps more remarkably, an unexpected parallel between his career and my own.

From Soviet International Trade to the Practice of Law

My father's educational background was unusually broad, even by the standards of the Soviet professional intelligentsia.

He initially studied English and German at a Soviet institute of foreign languages. He subsequently graduated from the Academy of Foreign Trade and the All-Union Correspondence Institute of Law, commonly known by its Russian acronym, VYuZI.

The Academy of Foreign Trade trained specialists for the Soviet Union's highly centralized system of international commerce. Unlike in the United States, foreign trade in the Soviet Union was a state monopoly, conducted through government ministries and specialized foreign-trade organizations. International commercial negotiations therefore occupied a distinctive position at the intersection of economics, diplomacy, and state administration.

My father then - according to accounts of some people who knew him - worked in London, reportedly for about 10 years, in a position as a diplomat.  

VYuZI, meanwhile, was an institution of higher legal education that allowed students, including working professionals, to obtain law degrees through a combination of independent study and formal examinations. It was an important component of Soviet legal education and subsequently became part of the institutional history of what is now Kutafin Moscow State Law University.

At some point in his career, my father served as an interpreter for Nikolai Semyonovich Patolichev, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Trade from 1958 until 1985.

Patolichev occupied a consequential position in Soviet economic diplomacy for nearly three decades, overseeing foreign commercial relations during the Cold War.

My father's linguistic training, combined with his subsequent education in economics and law, equipped him to work across national and institutional boundaries.

I do not know the precise chronology of these professional transitions. What the surviving publications demonstrate, however, is that by 1990 he was publicly identified as a human rights attorney.

December 1990: My Father Appears in the Los Angeles Times

On December 23, 1990, the Los Angeles Times published an article entitled "Pullout Means Fear, Hardship for Soviet Troops."

The article addressed the predicament of Soviet military personnel and their families stationed in Germany as the Soviet Union prepared to withdraw its armed forces from Central Europe.

The historical context is important.

Following German reunification in October 1990, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw the massive military contingent stationed in what had been East Germany. The withdrawal, completed in 1994, involved hundreds of thousands of military personnel and dependents, together with an enormous military infrastructure.

For the soldiers and their families, however, the geopolitical settlement created immediate and often devastating practical questions.

Where would they live upon returning to the Soviet Union? Would housing be available? What employment prospects awaited them? What legal protections existed against arbitrary decisions by military commanders?

The Soviet military system did not provide anything resembling the combination of judicial remedies, veterans' benefits, administrative procedures, and independent legal representation familiar to American military families.

It was within this context that the Los Angeles Times identified my father, Oleg Lyamin, as a "Soviet human rights lawyer."

He was quoted as a source familiar with the circumstances confronting Soviet military personnel and their families.

This is the earliest published reference to his human rights work that I have discovered so far.

It is particularly striking that an American newspaper was consulting him on the legal and humanitarian consequences of one of the largest military withdrawals in modern European history.

Source: Los Angeles Times, December 23, 1990, "Pullout Means Fear, Hardship for Soviet Troops."

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-12-23-mn-9895-story.html

1993: The International Society for Human Rights

A second documentary reference appears in archival materials preserved by the Moscow Helsinki Group.

The Moscow Helsinki Group was founded in 1976 to monitor Soviet compliance with the human rights commitments undertaken in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. Its members became prominent figures in the Soviet dissident movement, and several were imprisoned or otherwise persecuted for documenting governmental violations of those commitments.

In a collection of materials relating to legal defense seminars held in 1993, my father's name appears as follows:

"Lyamin Oleg Alexandrovich, ISHR, Moscow."

The original Russian entry reads:

"Лямин Олег Александрович, МОПЧ, Москва."

The abbreviation refers to the International Society for Human Rights, associated with the German Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte (IGFM).

The organization originated in Frankfurt am Main and became involved in international campaigns concerning political prisoners, religious freedom, freedom of expression, and abuses of governmental authority, particularly in the Soviet bloc.

The archival reference places my father within an organized network of human rights lawyers and advocates during the early years of post-Soviet Russia.

In 1993, my daughter Olga was born. I was occupied with raising a young child and had not yet become involved in human rights advocacy myself. I knew virtually nothing about my father's professional activities.

Only now have I discovered that he was participating in precisely the sort of legal and human rights work that would eventually become central to my own professional life.

Source: Moscow Helsinki Group, archival collection of legal defense seminar materials, 1993.

https://www.mhg.ru/sites/default/files/inline/files/yuridicheskaya-zashchita-seminary-bogoraz-1993.pdf

May 1994: The Defense of Major Georgy Shkutnik

On May 6, 1994, the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta published an article by journalist Vladimir Demchenko entitled "Military Logic: If He Waves His Arms, He Must Be Stealing."

The article concerned the criminal prosecution of Major Georgy Shkutnik, an officer serving with the Russian military forces stationed in Germany.

My father represented Shkutnik as defense counsel.

The case unfolded against the background of the withdrawal of the former Soviet military forces from Germany, an undertaking accompanied by disputes over military property, command authority, corruption, and the treatment of personnel.

According to the newspaper's account, Shkutnik had been subjected to detention, psychiatric confinement, and eventual incarceration in Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina detention facility.

Matrosskaya Tishina is one of Russia's best-known pretrial detention institutions. Its name has long been associated with prominent criminal prosecutions and controversies surrounding conditions of confinement.

The psychiatric component of the case also carries particular historical significance.

In the Soviet Union, psychiatry had at times been used as an instrument of political repression, with individuals subjected to involuntary psychiatric confinement on grounds that international human rights organizations challenged as medically and legally indefensible.

By the early 1990s, the use of psychiatric institutions in cases involving disputes with state authorities remained an especially sensitive human rights issue.

In the Novaya Gazeta article, my father publicly challenged the conduct of military prosecutors and described violations of his client's rights.

Among the matters he raised were conflicts of interest within the military justice system, including circumstances involving familial relationships between prosecutors and defense counsel.

For an American legal audience, the significance of such concerns is readily apparent. Questions of professional independence, divided loyalties, prosecutorial misconduct, and the integrity of criminal proceedings are not peculiar to any particular legal system.

The article also referred to video evidence obtained by the German publication Der Spiegel, which the defense intended to use in connection with the case.

My father described obstacles encountered in representing his client and efforts to attract international attention to the proceedings.

Organizations mentioned in connection with the case included Amnesty International, the International Society for Human Rights, and groups concerned with the political abuse of psychiatry.

His representation of Shkutnik therefore extended beyond conventional courtroom advocacy.

It involved the preservation and presentation of evidence, public scrutiny of prosecutorial conduct, international human rights organizations, and investigative journalism.

I find this aspect of his work especially remarkable because it so closely resembles the methods I would eventually employ in my own legal and investigative activities.

Yet I had no knowledge of his work on this case until I discovered the article more than thirty years later.

Source: Vladimir Demchenko, "Military Logic: If He Waves His Arms, He Must Be Stealing," Novaya Gazeta, May 6, 1994.

https://rima.media/paper/033kM5R3p1qgJHcVC42KNF-1994-05-06-novaya_print-486270-voennaia-logika-esli-mashet-rukami-znachit-voruet

The Soldiers' Mothers Movement and My Father's Years in Germany

I had known that my father assisted the Soldiers' Mothers movement, first in Russia and later in Germany. I did not, however, know the details of that work.

The Soldiers' Mothers movement emerged during the late Soviet period in response to the treatment of conscripts and the lack of effective legal remedies available to their families.

Its work included assisting soldiers and their relatives in cases involving abusive military practices, unlawful conscription, hazing, injuries, deaths, and violations of statutory protections.

The movement became especially prominent during the wars in Chechnya, when families sought information about missing servicemen, challenged military practices, and demanded accountability from state authorities.

Although the name may sound to American readers like that of a military family support organization, the Russian Soldiers' Mothers committees performed a much broader function.

They served as independent human rights organizations confronting a military bureaucracy that had historically operated with limited transparency and accountability.

My father's involvement with this movement was therefore consistent with the professional activities documented in the Los Angeles Times and Novaya Gazeta.

After moving to Germany, he lived first in Gera, a city in Thuringia, in the territory of the former German Democratic Republic. During the final years of his life, he lived near Düsseldorf, in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

I know that his assistance to the Soldiers' Mothers movement continued during his years in Germany, but I have not yet located documents describing that period of his career.

The archives of the International Society for Human Rights in Germany may contain additional information about his activities, correspondence, legal work, and participation in international human rights initiatives.

Maria Bonzler: The Unexpected Beginning of This Investigation

The immediate reason I began researching my father's professional history was the prosecution of Maria Vladimirovna Bonzler, an attorney and human rights advocate from Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea, geographically separated from the rest of Russia and bordered by Poland and Lithuania. Before 1945, the city was known as Königsberg and belonged to Germany.

Following World War II, the northern portion of East Prussia was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Kaliningrad subsequently became an important Soviet, and later Russian, military and naval center.

Bonzler participated in founding the Kaliningrad Committee of Soldiers' Mothers in 1995.

She later became known for representing individuals in politically sensitive proceedings, including cases arising from opposition to Russia's war against Ukraine.

In May 2025, she was arrested. The charges against her were subsequently escalated to high treason.

On November 10, 2026, Russian prosecutors requested a fifteen-year prison sentence.

Reading about her case reminded me of my father's work with the Soldiers' Mothers movement.

I wondered whether they had known one another or collaborated professionally.

So far, I have found no documentary evidence of a direct connection. Their work, however, involved the same broader human rights movement, and the possibility of professional contact remains a subject for further research.

It was this question that unexpectedly opened a much larger inquiry into my own family history.

Three Degrees, Two Legal Careers, and an Unexpected Parallel

Perhaps the most remarkable discovery is the similarity between my father's educational and professional trajectory and my own.

My father first studied foreign languages, then international trade and economics, and finally law.

I followed essentially the same educational sequence, independently and without any conscious intention to imitate him.

I first obtained my linguistic education in Moscow, studying foreign languages. I subsequently pursued graduate education in economics at the Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics, commonly known as MESI.

Only afterward did I study law, earning my Juris Doctor degree from Albany Law School in New York.

I was admitted to the New York Bar in 2009.

My own professional interests eventually came to encompass constitutional law, civil rights litigation, judicial accountability, the independence of the legal profession, and investigative journalism.

I began publishing investigative work concerning judicial conduct and the administration of justice, using legal documents, court records, and public reporting to examine questions of governmental accountability.

Only now have I learned that my father had employed a remarkably similar combination of legal advocacy, international engagement, documentary evidence, and journalism decades earlier.

There is a certain irony in discovering this resemblance.

I did not grow up under his professional guidance. He did not introduce me to his cases, teach me his methods, or encourage me to follow his career.

Indeed, I knew so little about his work that I had to learn about it from newspaper archives.

Nevertheless, we independently pursued the same three areas of higher education — languages, economics, and law — and eventually developed overlapping professional interests in the protection of individual rights against abuses of governmental power.

I do not know whether to call this coincidence, intellectual inheritance, or simply the convergence of two professional lives shaped by similar interests.

But it is a striking discovery.

A Professional Biography Still Waiting to Be Reconstructed

At present, three published sources provide a preliminary documentary chronology of my father's human rights work.

In December 1990, the Los Angeles Times identified him as a Soviet human rights lawyer commenting on the plight of military personnel and their families in Germany.

In 1993, the Moscow Helsinki Group's archival materials listed him as a representative of the International Society for Human Rights in Moscow.

In May 1994, Novaya Gazeta documented his representation of Major Georgy Shkutnik and his public criticism of military prosecutorial practices.

These references almost certainly represent only a fraction of his professional activities.

Much remains to be learned about his work in Soviet international trade, his years as an attorney in Russia, his involvement with the Soldiers' Mothers movement, and his later activities in Germany.

Law was very far from my career purpose at the beginning.

But I ended up being a daughter of a lawyer, a wife of a lawyer, a lawyer myself, a stepmother and a mother of a lawyer.  Five lawyers in one international family spanning continents and generations.

I hope that further research in Russian and German archives will illuminate for me my father's professional life as a human rights defender. 

I would also welcome information from anyone who knew Oleg Alexandrovich Lyamin professionally, worked with him in the International Society for Human Rights or the Soldiers' Mothers movement, or remembers his legal work in Russia or Germany.

There is something profoundly unexpected about discovering one's father through historical newspaper articles and human rights archives.

For most of my life, I knew very little about his professional accomplishments. I certainly did not know that he had been engaged in international human rights advocacy long before I entered the legal profession.

And now, decades later, I find myself reading about his work and recognizing not merely the professional interests we shared, but an approach to the practice of law that I had believed I developed entirely on my own.

I began this research because of another attorney's prosecution in Kaliningrad.

I ended up discovering a part of my father's life — and, unexpectedly, a part of my own professional history.

Monday, November 9, 2026

Town of Meredith, New York: Videoconferencing for Town Officials, but Not for Disabled Members of the Public?

I recently requested that the Town of Meredith, Delaware County, New York, provide ongoing live, interactive videoconferencing access to public meetings and hearings of its Town Board, Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, and other municipal bodies as a reasonable accommodation for my disability.

Today, November 9, 2026, I received a response from Town Attorney Carly Walas, Esq.




Her answer was essentially this: the Town is not required to livestream its meetings for the public, and if I want to attend a particular meeting remotely, I should submit a separate accommodation request identifying that proceeding.

Walas wrote:

"The Town's ordinary in-person meetings are not, merely by virtue of being public meetings, subject to a general statutory requirement that the Town provide livestreaming or interactive videoconferencing to the public."

She continued:

"Please identify the particular municipal proceeding or proceedings for which you are requesting accommodation."

Apparently, the Town expects a disabled property owner to apply repeatedly for access to public proceedings, notwithstanding a continuing disability and a continuing need for accommodation.

But there is much more to this story.

Videoconferencing for Town Officials, but Not for the Public?

I am informed that many municipal meetings in the local townships, including the Town of Meredith, are already convened virtually for the convenience of Town officials and board members.

If that information is correct, the Town already has the technology necessary to conduct municipal business through videoconferencing.

The question is not whether the Town must purchase expensive equipment, develop a new technological system, or fundamentally change how its municipal bodies operate.

The question is why the Town cannot open its existing virtual meetings to the public.

If Town officials can participate remotely for their own convenience, why should disabled members of the public have to submit individual applications for permission to do the same?

There is an obvious distinction between making a public meeting available through an existing videoconferencing system and creating an entirely new municipal service.

Town Attorney Walas does not address whether Meredith already conducts virtual meetings, whether the public can be admitted to them, or what expense or difficulty would result from doing so.

Instead, she answers a different question: whether the Open Meetings Law requires all public meetings to be livestreamed.

That was not the basis of my request.

I Am Not the Only Person Who Needs Remote Access

Meredith is a rural mountain snowbelt town with an aging population. Many residents have disabilities, chronic illnesses, and mobility limitations. Others may be temporarily unable to travel because of illness, injury, or dangerous weather conditions.

And winter is coming.

Anyone familiar with Delaware County winters knows what that means: snowstorms, icy roads, difficult driving conditions, and households that may be snowed in.

Why should an elderly resident have to risk driving on icy mountain roads to observe a Town Board meeting?

Why should a person with a mobility impairment be excluded from a public hearing because the municipal building is inaccessible to that person in practice?

Why should someone recovering from surgery, caring for a disabled family member, or unable to leave home during a snowstorm be deprived of the opportunity to follow decisions affecting their property and community?

Remote access is not merely a convenience. For many people, it is the only practical means of participating in local government.

And the benefits would extend beyond people with disabilities.

Livestreamed meetings would allow working residents, caregivers, seasonal residents, and out-of-town property owners to follow municipal proceedings. They would make local government more accessible, more transparent, and more accountable.

If videoconferencing is already available to municipal officials, extending it to the public should be an obvious subject for consideration, not a reason to send disabled residents through repeated accommodation procedures.

The Town Attorney Confuses the Open Meetings Law with the ADA

My request was made under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12132, which prohibits disability discrimination in the services, programs, and activities of public entities.

Under 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(b)(7)(i), public entities must make reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures when necessary to avoid disability discrimination, unless they demonstrate that the modification would fundamentally alter the nature of the service, program, or activity.

Under 28 C.F.R. § 35.160, public entities must ensure effective communication with individuals with disabilities.

Those obligations exist independently of whether the Open Meetings Law requires livestreaming for the general public.

The absence of a general statutory requirement to livestream every public meeting does not answer whether a particular public entity must provide remote access as a disability accommodation.

Walas acknowledges that Meredith is subject to Title II. Yet she refuses to agree to my request for ongoing access and proposes that I identify particular proceedings for separate consideration.

But I already identified the proceedings: the public meetings and hearings of the Town's municipal bodies.

My disability does not disappear between Town Board meetings. It does not disappear when the Planning Board convenes. And it does not require a new legal analysis every time the Zoning Board of Appeals schedules a hearing.

Requiring a disabled person to repeatedly apply for access to recurring public proceedings creates an additional burden precisely because that person has a disability.

New York Voters Added Disability Discrimination to Their Constitution

There is another important legal development that the Town Attorney's letter does not address.

On November 5, 2024, New York voters approved an amendment to Article I, § 11 of the New York State Constitution, expressly extending constitutional protection against discrimination to disability, age, and other protected characteristics.

The amendment became effective on January 1, 2025.

Article I, § 11 contains two distinct protections: equal protection of the laws and a prohibition against discrimination in civil rights by the State and its agencies or subdivisions.

Disability is now expressly included among the prohibited grounds of discrimination in civil rights.

This is not merely an administrative regulation or a policy adopted by a state agency.

It is a constitutional command approved by New York voters.

The Town of Meredith is a political subdivision of New York State. Its meetings and hearings are governmental activities. Access to those proceedings implicates the ability of residents and property owners to participate in the civic affairs of their community.

The constitutional amendment therefore adds an independent state-law dimension to the Town's treatment of disability-related requests for access.

The Town Attorney's letter does not mention the amendment, much less analyze its application to a municipality that refuses ongoing remote access to a disabled property owner.

New York voters did not amend their Constitution merely to have municipalities continue treating disability access as an occasional favor to be requested separately for each public proceeding.

What Alternative Does Meredith Propose?

Walas writes that the Town will consider:

"any effective alternative accommodations that may provide meaningful access to the particular municipal proceeding."

But her letter identifies no alternative.

A written agenda does not allow a person to hear a live discussion.

Minutes prepared after a meeting do not permit contemporaneous observation.

A recording supplied after a public hearing has concluded does not allow a person to speak during that hearing.

Written comments are not necessarily an equivalent substitute for participation in a live proceeding where other members of the public can address officials and respond to issues as they arise.

The Town Attorney does not identify any technical difficulty associated with the requested accommodation. She does not provide a cost estimate. She does not explain whether the Town's existing videoconferencing arrangements could be opened to public observers.

Instead, she proposes a proceeding-by-proceeding application process.

That proposal raises a serious question: is the Town accommodating disability, or creating an additional administrative obstacle to participation because of disability?

Public Meetings Belong to the Public

The Supreme Court has recognized the breadth of Title II's application to public services and activities. See Pennsylvania Department of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206 (1998), and Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004).

Local government is no exception.

Town boards decide questions of taxation, municipal expenditures, land use, infrastructure, and public safety. Planning boards and zoning boards make decisions that can profoundly affect property rights, neighboring landowners, and entire communities.

These proceedings are not private gatherings of municipal officials.

They are exercises of governmental authority conducted on behalf of the public.

And in a rural community with an aging population, difficult winters, and residents who cannot always travel safely, remote access is an obvious means of expanding meaningful public participation.

The reported use of videoconferencing by Town officials makes Meredith's response particularly difficult to understand.

If remote participation is convenient enough for the people exercising governmental authority, why is it not available to the people affected by their decisions?

The Town Reserves Its Defenses. I Am Still Waiting for Access.

Walas concludes her November 9, 2026 letter with this statement:

"Nothing herein should be construed as a waiver of any rights, defenses, or legal positions available to the Town."

The Town has reserved its legal defenses.

I am still waiting for it to provide access.

I did not request special privileges, control over municipal proceedings, or the right to dictate the Town's agenda.

I requested the opportunity to observe and participate in the same public proceedings that people without my disability can attend in person.

I also believe that opening municipal videoconferencing to the public would benefit many Meredith residents, particularly elderly and disabled people facing another Delaware County winter.

The issue is not whether the Town of Meredith must livestream every meeting for everybody under the Open Meetings Law.

The issue is why a municipality quite capable of conducting meetings virtually - just one smart phone is needed for that - for the convenience of its own officials refuses to provide continuing remote access to a disabled member of the public, despite the Americans with Disabilities Act and New York's newly amended constitutional prohibition against disability discrimination.

The people of Meredith deserve an answer.

And they deserve access to their own government.