COLONIE — An attorney for the town of Colonie filed a memorandum in state Supreme Court early Thursday alleging New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan had refused to let the town take part in a May 27 meeting that was convened to discuss the relocation of migrants to a Wolf Road hotel.
The court filing is the latest in an ongoing legal dispute in which the town is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop any additional relocations of migrants to the community without the inter-governmental coordination that Colonie asserts is required under an executive order issued May 23 by Albany County Executive Daniel P. McCoy.
The memorandum filed by E. Guy Roemer, an attorney for the town, said officials there first learned of New York City’s plan to bus migrants to a Best Western hotel on Memorial Day weekend when an Albany police officer contacted a Colonie police officer and informed him that three busloads of migrants were going to be sent to the hotel.
“This news, and other similar morsels of information, began to trickle into the town of Colonie on Thursday evening immediately preceding the long holiday weekend,” Roemer wrote.
On May 27, another town police officer was notified that a Zoom meeting had been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. that Saturday with Adams, Sheehan “and their respective police departments.”
“The purpose… was to discuss the transport of homeless adult men living in New York City to a hotel located in the town of Colonie,” the town’s memorandum states. “The Colonie police officer’s requests to participate in the Zoom conference, or any conversations thereafter regarding this issue, were outright denied.”
Town officials also assert that they learned from a hotel operator in Colonie that New York City officials had contacted them weeks earlier about sending busloads of migrants there. Town officials said no one from Adams’ administration had ever reached out to them about the plans.
The offices of Sheehan and Adams did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
The town’s court petition was filed last month against the Adams, Sheehan, their cities’ department of social services and the Best Western hotel in Colonie. The case is scheduled to be argued in state Supreme Court on Friday. It does not not seek to block the housing of additional migrants in the community, but is asking a judge to order New York City to cease busing more migrants there “absent proper procedures and protocols being implemented.”
Attorneys for New York City have asked for the case to be dismissed, asserting that the town and Supervisor Peter Crummey lack standing to seek a preliminary injunction, have not alleged any harm from the relocation of migrants, and that executive order issued by McCoy last month — which required coordination and notification for any relocation of migrants to Albany County — had expired on May 29 and was not renewed.
“The Albany County (executive order) is also not enforceable here because it conflicts with state laws, rules, policies, and regulations and it is otherwise unlawful under state and federal law,” Elliott A. Hallak, an attorney for New York City, wrote in a response filed in the case.
In a statement issued May 23, McCoy had explained his reasons for issuing the executive order, saying: “Allowing for the transportation of busloads of migrant families within our county communities without a plan and without clear communication does not protect our residents and it does not protect the migrant families asylum.”
The Best Western hotel, which is housing 24 migrants but has not received any additional busloads of asylum-seekers, also have filed motions in opposition to the town’s petition.
“In the midst of a humanitarian crisis, Colonie seeks to erect a wall around its borders and select the people who may enter, keeping out those whom Colonie deems ‘undesirable,’” wrote Todd E. Soloway, an attorney for the Surestay By Best Western Albany Airport. “Colonie chooses on the basis of immigration status, following an executive order issued by Albany County — a classification which is unconstitutional, unlawful, and prohibited by federal and state law.”
Soloway noted that similar executive orders issued in Orange and Rockland counties had been recently struck down by courts, and that U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Román had said in a ruling “smelled of Jim Crow laws.”
Crummey previously said that McCoy’s executive order had required that the county be notified to coordinate housing for migrants and asylum-seekers being transported here, and that only the county social services commissioner could issue licenses to hotels, motels or other dwellings to house groups of people.
“While that order did not necessarily exclude the possibility of migrants being housed within the county, it distinctly required a collaborated and coordinated deliberate plan amongst state, county and local officials as well as non-profit organizations,” Crummey said last month. “The county executive’s statement concerning his order specifically confirms this approach rather than ‘a unilateral decision of one city.’”
In an affidavit filed in state Supreme Court, a general manager at the 153-room Best Western in Colonie said that New York City is paying for the 24 migrants’ lodging, food, laundry “and a full array of medical and social services.”
Sheehan told the Times Union last month that she had “been in contact with New York City officials to identify hotels within the city of Albany that could provide housing and connect them with a vast network of local community-based organizations that offer additional services to asylum seekers.”
She later confirmed in response to questions from the Times Union that she had objected to an initial plan to house migrants in a Ramada Inn in Albany. Her opposition was due to what she said are problems with crime and police calls to that area.
In the town’s court filing on Thursday, Roemer said town police and emergency services had responded to nearly 300 calls at the Best Western hotel between November 2021 and May 25.