Melchners face off with Carmel over Lake Mahopac docks after decades of litigation

Aspiring entrepreneur Charlie Melchner in 1970 bought a boathouse with 30 slips on fabled Lake Mahopac, the waterbody in the heart of Mahopac that was popular with motorboat enthusiasts. A year later, the town of Carmel cited Melchner for operating a commercial enterprise in a residential zone.

It was the beginning of a legal struggle that’s slogged on for 53 years.

Melchner and the town worked things out in the early 1970s. But Carmel’s crackdown on Melchner’s high-profile business picked up with great fervor in the 1990s. Between 1991 and 2009, the town commenced four civil actions and three criminal prosecutions as Melchner added dock slips to accommodate a growing array of speed boats, pontoon boats, and jet skis.

On one occasion, Melchner, who served as president of the Mahopac Chamber of Commerce, was handcuffed by Carmel police after he was issued a violation of the town’s zoning ordinance.

Putnam's Hatfields and McCoys

The battle between Melchner and the town has a tangled subplot as well, with Lake Mahopac powerhouses lining up behind both parties in the legal fight. Backing the town were two families deeply involved in Carmel politics and government — the Spains and the Maxwells, who long controlled the town’s Conservative Party and had deep ties with its ruling Republicans.

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Backing Melchner are Mike Barile, the Mahopac commercial property baron who was fined $105,000 in 2020 for an illegal sewer hook-up at his Lake Mahopac restaurant, and former Town Board member Tim Wilson.

“It was like a Hatfields and McCoys thing in Mahopac,” said Barile in a deposition for the case. “It was literally two or three families against the Melchners, and the town was in the middle.”

The stormy relationship between Melchner and the town will finally come to a head in a September trial before state Supreme Court Justice Victor Grossman. Since 2017,  Melchner has alleged that the town engaged in malicious prosecution by filing a criminal complaint against him in 2009, when it was known that the town had no jurisdiction over his dock expansion.

If successful, Melchner and his wife, Lillian, could win a sizable damage award from the town. He could use the money. Currently pending is a bank foreclosure on his South Lake Boulevard home, with Melchner owing the bank $1 million in principal and interest, according to court records.

“A bunch of people in town want it to be a private lake and they are using their will to make it happen,” said Melchner, 81, who splits his time between Mahopac and Florida. “This has to end. I’ve spent an enormous amount of money. I’m in foreclosure on my house. It’s no fun.”

Case may settle points of contention

The case will hang on two points: whether Carmel building official Mike Carnazza had reasonable cause to believe Melchner could be charged with violating Carmel’s zoning ordinance, and whether the town acted with malice after officials learned the town lacked jurisdiction to lodge the complaint.

The town’s attorney, Maurizio Savoiardo, has argued that Carnazza had good reason to believe that Melchner had to comply with town zoning, citing decisions by four judges in cases in the 1990s and 2000s in which they ruled the marina had to follow zoning rules.

In another case, Melchner pleaded guilty to a zoning violation and paid a fine of $35,000.

“Four judges over 10 years said the town had jurisdiction,” said Savoiardo. “If four judges got it wrong, how is Mike Carnazza supposed to get it right? It was reasonable for him to think he had jurisdiction.”

But Barile, whose restaurant has about 30 boat slips a quarter-mile west of Melchner’s marina, said it was well-established that the state of New York owned the lakebed and had jurisdiction over dockage.

Barile said the town was doing the bidding of the Spain family, which has spearheaded separate legal actions through the Friends of Lake Mahopac, a group of homeowners concerned with boat safety and traffic on the lake. The group has filed suits regarding the marina, including its most recent filing that succeeded in invalidating the marina’s dock permits through the state, which were granted without an environmental review.

In his testimony, Barile recounted conversations he had with former town Supervisor Ken Schmitt, who was in charge of the town in 2008.

“I’d say: ‘Why are you wasting my money doing this over and over and over when you know you don’t own the lakebed?” Barile said in a deposition.

Wilson, who served on the Town Board from 1998 to 2001, said Melchner’s enemies wanted to make life difficult for him.

“The Spains and Maxwells, in my opinion, wanted to bankrupt the Melchners to put them out of business," said Wilson in a deposition. “I believe they felt like Lake Mahopac was a private preserve for people who lived around the lake."

Spain power

The most powerful of those families is the Spain family, with its former downtown Mahopac insurance agency, ownership interests in the former Mahopac National Bank, and public positions held by attorney William Spain, Jr. and his brother, Compton.

William Spain denied that he wanted to put the Melchners out of business.

“We only want to limit further expansion of the marina,” he said.

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Spain, who grew up on North Lake Boulevard, has served as Carmel town attorney, Putnam County attorney, and chairman of the Carmel Board of Zoning Appeals. His brother, Compton, now serves as Putnam County attorney.

Former Conservative Party Chairman James Maxwell died in 2023, while his son, John, chairs the Carmel Zoning Board of Appeals. John Maxwell did not return a phone message.

What agency controls the docks

At issue has been the changing interpretation of what agency has control over the docks in Lake Mahopac.

In 2008, just a month after Carnazza cited the marina for expanding its docks in violation of the town code, the town's special counsel sought an opinion from the state Attorney General’s office, regarding jurisdiction over the placement of docks in the state-owned lake. The state advised the town that a municipality lacked such authority unless it had obtained such authority from the state Legislature.

Carmel never obtained such permission.

Nevertheless, Carnazza two months later filed criminal complaints in town court, citing violations of the town’s zoning code.

Said Carnazza in his court deposition: “I believed I had jurisdiction.”

Was there malice?

To prove malicious prosecution, the Melchners must show that the town filed the charge with malicious intent and lacked jurisdiction to file the criminal complaint.

Justice Grossman outlined the series of events that led to his conclusion that a trial was necessary to determine if the Melchners could prove their case.

In 2010, two years after the complaint was filed, court records detail that the state Office of General Services, which issues dock permits, advised the town that it lacked the authority to enforce its zoning ordinance on Melchner’s dock expansion.

No matter. The town again proceeded to pursue the criminal charges.

By 2012, the town conceded before the Appellate Division that it lacked jurisdiction and had never sought state legislative authority to control the lake's docks because it couldn’t afford to regulate all the docks along the shores of Lake Mahopac.

A 2022 court decision said the record indicated the Melchner complaint “adequately alleges the element of actual malice.”

Charles Melchner, Jr., who has run the marina for the past decade, said his mother and father need closure on the issue.

"They fought through everything and did what they thought was right,” said Melchner late one afternoon in February at the marina. “This is the last chapter. Maybe the town is finally going to see the light and just settle. Who knows if it would be the right number. In the meantime, I get up every morning and go to work. ”

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David McKay Wilson writes about tax issues and government accountability. Follow him on Twitter @davidmckay415 or email him at dwilson3@lohud.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Trial to determine if malice fueled Mahopac Marina disputes