A New York State Supreme Court judge has dismissed an effort by two residents to dissolve the Richland Fire District. The decision, handed down on May 22, 2025, cites numerous legal deficiencies in the dissolution petition filed by Crystal Myers and Timothy Thayer.
Myers and Thayer began the process to dissolve the Richland Fire District by circulating petitions among residents of the district, seeking signatures from registered voters in support of a referendum. Once they gathered what they believed were sufficient signatures, they filed a petition with the Richland Town Clerk and claimed to have received a certificate of validity on September 19, 2024.
When the town failed to schedule an election, Myers and Thayer brought the matter to court by filing an Article 78 petition—a legal mechanism in New York used to compel a government entity to perform a duty required by law. They named the fire district as the respondant, and sought a court order directing that a referendum be held on dissolving the Richland Fire District, claiming the Town Clerk had validated their petition but the district failed to hold a vote within the required 30-day window.
The judge identified multiple independent grounds for dismissal—any one of which would have doomed the petition on its own.
First, state law requires that at least five qualified electors file such a petition. Myers and Thayer were only two. To make matters worse, Myers did not even reside in the district—a key requirement under the General Municipal Law. The court made it clear: owning property in a fire district is not enough to qualify someone as an “elector.” You must be a registered voter in that district.
Second, many of the signatures collected by the petitioners came from people who were not registered voters within the Richland Fire District. Had the court not dismissed the case for other reasons, these invalid signatures would have undermined the petition’s validity regardless.
Third, the paperwork submitted to the court was riddled with problems. The judge noted inconsistencies in signature pages, missing certifications from the Town Clerk, witness signatures that did not match the names of actual witnesses, and pages that were never submitted to the Town Clerk in the first place. The petitioners even altered witness signature pages after the fact—something the court found especially problematic.
Finally, while the petitions were filed with the Town Clerk as required by statute, the Article 78 proceeding was brought against the Richland Fire District—a separate and independent political subdivision under New York law. The court noted that fire districts are not departments of town government and operate independently. Under General Municipal Law § 779, when residents seek to dissolve a fire district, the petition must be filed with the Town Clerk of the town in which the majority of the fire district lies. This part was done correctly by Myers and Thayer.
However, since the Article 78 petition was brought against the Richland Fire District, not the Town, and the corrected list of electors would need to be certified by the Town, the court could not compel the town to certify a corrected list of electors. Without the certified list, the petitioners were not entitled to a an order that would mandate an election be held.
Congratulations again to our friend and colleague, Brad Pinsky, who successfully represented the fire district.
Here is a copy of the decision:
