***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***
July 13, 2026
Contact: press@clarkstowndemocrats.com
Clarkstown Democratic Committee Condemns Retaliation Against Clarkstown Whistleblowers as District Attorney’s Investigators Step In
An engineer reported $594,469 in unsupported Siemens billing. The Hoehmann administration’s answer was a locksmith, a confiscated computer, and a police escort out of Town Hall.
(New City, N.Y.) – The Clarkstown Democratic Committee today condemned the reported retaliation against a town employee and the elected Clarkstown Superintendent of Highways who raised concerns about the Town’s $9 million Siemens Energy Performance Contract, and called on Supervisor George Hoehmann to cooperate fully with investigators from the Rockland County District Attorney’s office and to order an independent third-party audit of the Siemens procurement and performance.
According to the Rockland County Business Journal report, Michael Gianatasio, P.E., Clarkstown’s Director of Engineering & Facilities Management, was placed on paid administrative leave after repeatedly raising concerns about what he described as an “unexplained, unsupported labor” discrepancy totaling $594,469 related to the Town’s Siemens Energy Performance Contract. Gianatasio sent multiple memos to town leadership addressing this concern, including a June 18 memo sent directly to Supervisor George Hoehmann. Roughly three weeks later, locksmiths changed the locks on his office while he was summoned to the town attorney’s office, told he was under a personnel investigation, and told he could not have his own attorney present. His computer was confiscated and police escorted him from Town Hall.
Gianatasio is not alone. Clarkstown Superintendent of Highways Robert Milone has asked Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Walsh to investigate the town and its officials for possible nonfeasance or neglect in the oversight and administration of the Siemens contract. Milone reports that after he raised the contract at a June 12 meeting, Supervisor Hoehmann called a special board meeting three days later—at noon and posted without an agenda—to claw back highway funds approved only a week earlier. Milone alleges this action was retaliation. Milone has confirmed that the District Attorney’s office contacted him and that he met with investigators.
This is not the first time Supervisor Hoehmann has faced allegations of retaliation against a town employee.
In 2021, former Clarkstown Police Sergeant Stephen Cole-Hatchard won a federal jury verdict against the Town of Clarkstown and Supervisor Hoehmann, after being removed from an investigative assignment for looking into $216,900 in campaign contributions connected to Supervisor Hoehmann’s 2015 campaign. The contributions came from another former Clarkstown police sergeant who had been dismissed from the department and hoped to be reinstated if Hoehmann won. Court filings alleged Cole-Hatchard was targeted to keep that information from becoming public. The jury found unlawful retaliation and assessed $216,900 in punitive damages against Supervisor Hoehmann personally; rather than appeal, the town’s insurer settled, and Cole-Hatchard accepted $975,000.
In 2023, former Police Chief Michael Sullivan settled his lawsuit against the town for $2.5 million, nearly five years after the town board voted to fire him. A state judge annulled that vote, ruling that Hoehmann, who was Sullivan’s opponent in the 2017 race for Town Supervisor, should not have taken part in it. Sullivan maintained that the retaliation against him began after he reported suspected campaign finance violations to the District Attorney, who referred the matter to the New York Attorney General.
Retaliation claims have already cost Clarkstown nearly $3.5 million. Now a licensed engineer says he was locked out of his office for asking where $594,469 went.
Eugene Bondar, Democratic candidate for Clarkstown Town Supervisor, said, “When a town’s own licensed engineer reports that hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars cannot be accounted for, town officials have one job: answer the question, not silence the person asking it. According to the Rockland County Business Journal, the current administration did the opposite, placing the engineer on leave, changing the locks on his office, and having him escorted out by police while the billing on the Siemens contract went unexamined. That leaves residents with two explanations, and neither belongs in an honest town government. Either officials knew about these discrepancies and allowed them to continue, or they had no idea what was happening on their own watch. Clarkstown taxpayers are entitled to a full, independent accounting, conducted in public, and they are entitled to it now. The District Attorney’s investigators are already asking questions. The Supervisor should cooperate fully, preserve every record, and stop punishing the hardworking people who did their jobs.”