Early in 2009, the Honorable Denise Cote, a highly-respected federal judge, found as a matter of law that Westchester County had “utterly failed” to meet its affirmatively furthering fair housing (“AFFH”) obligations during the false claims period (2000-06), and that each and all of Westchester’s certifications that it had or would AFFH were “false or fraudulent.”
Faced with certain defeat on the remaining question of whether its false representations were made in reckless disregard or deliberate ignorance of their truth or falsity, Westchester decided to settle the case.
The overall financial scope of the settlement -- $62.5 million – represents a sum greater than all of the community development and related funding that Westchester received from federal government during the false claims period.
Most importantly, Westchester was prohibited from ignoring either the residential racial segregation that continues to plague it, nor the municipal resistance to affordable housing development that stymies the possibility of changing those patterns.
Read Westchester's memorandum in support of its latest motion (March 10, 2009). The County says that, in the absence of the Court's allowing the County to appeal immediately and put off the trial (relief that the County acknowledges requires "exceptional circumstances"), the County "must decide either to conform its practices to the Court's ruling" or "to withdraw from the CDBG program..." In the interim, Westchester says that it has "suspended its process of drawing on CDBG funds..." See page 6 of the PDF. The motion was denied.
