While the Town of Tuxedo has been preoccupied with the Genting Americas Sterling Forest casino proposal, there were signs of life on the other large development in the area — Tuxedo Farms, also known as Tuxedo Reserve.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day
Rockland County Executive Ed Day made a move Tuesday night to set in motion and allow Tuxedo Farms to hook into Rockland County Sewer District 1, instead of TF’s upgrading the town’s sewer infrastructure. During the Rockland County Legislature’s Tuesday evening, June 24 Planning & Public Works Committee meeting, item number eight on the agenda was a request by Day to set a date for a Public Hearing related to “premises located outside the geographical boundaries of the county of Rockland” connecting to the Rockland County Sewer District 1, which has an Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant in Hillburn, NY. 
Additionally, part of the Day agenda item included a local law that would allow specifically for Tuxedo Farms to connect to Rockland sewers.
The Tuxedo Reserve/Farms development has been moving along incrementally for many years now and at last configuration would consist of some 1,195 single-family homes, condominiums and townhouses on 1,266 acres just northwest of Sloatsburg. The Rockland County Planning & Public Works Committee voted against the proposed Public Hearing by a 5-2 vote, with Legislators Douglas Jobson, District 1, and Patrick Moroney, District 15, voting yes for the measure. Legislator Ilan Schoenberger is Chairman of the Planning & Public Works Committee.
Legislator Alden H. Wolfe, District 6, reportedly reminded the Chair during proceedings that a proposed law must be sponsored by a member of the county legislature to be put on the agenda, an apparent dig at Day’s procedural maneuvering.
In March of 2014, County Executive Ed Day met with Dianne Philips, executive director of Rockland County Sewer District 1, Tuxedo town officials and Related Companies Vice President Andrew Dance to discuss the possibility of hooking up Tuxedo Farms to the Western Ramapo Sewer extension.
Laura Incalcaterra reported in The Journal News at the time that the Related Companies promoted the benefits of a Tuxedo Farms sewer hookup with Rockland, “including $1.5 million to the county’s general fund” and “$7.4 million to the sewer district to offset future capital costs.”
Ilan Schoenberger noted in a constituent letter at the end of March, 2014, in response to Day’s Tuxedo meetings, that “Many of us in the Legislature were quite shocked to learn that County Executive Day was negotiating with the developers to sell approximately one-third of the capacity of the Western Ramapo Sewer extension to the developers in the Town of Tuxedo. The entire Western Ramapo Sewer extension cost the taxpayers of Ramapo and Clarkstown a total of approximately $168,000,000. Of that, the advanced wastewater treatment plant is approximately $45,000,000. The advanced wastewater treatment plant is designed to handle 1.5 million gallons daily. The Tuxedo proposal will use approximately one-third of that or 500,000 gallons per day.”
Schoenberger stated that if any deal was struck that involved negotiated payments, those monies shouldn’t go to the County of Rockland since the taxpayers of Ramapo and Clarkstown paid for the construction of the advanced wastewater treatment plant.
