KINGSTON – A judge denied the Town of Colonie’s request for a preliminary injunction on Friday, June 9 to stop New York City from busing more migrants to the Sure Stay Hotel on Wolf Road or any other location in the town, but the original litigation is moving forward.
“The preliminary injunction was not granted in our suit,” Town Supervisor Peter Crummey said on Friday.
Crummey and the town filed the suit on May 27 in State Supreme Court in Albany County after officials learned that busloads of migrants were on their way to Colonie. At that time, Judge Gerald Connolly affirmed a consent order until arguments on the case could be heard on June 9.
The judge assigned to hear the case for a permanent injunction, James Gilpatric, held a hearing at 9:30 a.m. in Kingston, Ulster County with all the parties. Colonie Town Attorney E. Guy Roemer represented the town in its quest to stop all future buses until the original case was settled.
The judge refused the temporary injunction, but did not dismiss the original legislation. That will move forward in coming months, Roemer said.
“That takes time,” he said. “With discovery and motions, it is a slow-moving process.”
Just after Crummey and the Town filed the lawsuit, a bus of 24 migrants arrived at the Sure Stay Best Western Hotel on Wolf Road as part of a relocation program from New York City. According to local officials, the problem is not that migrants came to the town, but rather they did not know who was coming, how long they would be staying, who would eventually pay the bill and what motivated New York Mayor Eric Adams to choose Colonie as the destination.
Prior to the arrival of migrants to Colonie, Adams, through a contractor not-for-profit agency DocGo, booked 100 rooms at the Sure Stay Hotel for three months to house 400 migrants, even though Albany County Executive Dan McCoy issued a state of emergency and order on Tuesday, May 23.
This information is as of Monday morning. We will update this story as more documents and information become available online and in print next week.