A Westchester County town is mired in a legal dispute with a suburban childcare center to keep migrant kids from moving into the facility.
Officials in Mount Pleasant countersued the Jewish Child Care Association to keep the agency from housing asylum-seeking children at the Pleasantville Cottage School, a local residential treatment center for kids with a history of controversy.
The first salvo in the courtroom battle was fired by JCCA on April 4, suing the town and Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi after the politician declared an emergency order to keep migrants out of the town — saying the move violates the agency’s constitutional rights and its mission to shelter kids in need.
“The town’s orders are unconstitutional on their face and as applied,” the JCCA lawsuit said. “By reason of the foregoing, [the town] — and those they serve, the children — have suffered traceable harm as a direct result of the town’s orders.”
JCCA has a deal with the US Office of Refugee Resettlement to take in the kids, the lawsuit said.
But the town countersued on April 12, seeking an injunction to keep the migrant children out of the facility, which has long had a troubled relationship with the suburban town, lohud.com reported.
The Cottage School is a residential treatment center that houses troubled youngsters — most of them from New York City — who have occasionally caused trouble in the community.
Town officials have long sought to shut down the facility, even before the migrant issue surfaced.
They now say that local zoning, which calls for single-family homes and educational facilities, prohibits the placement of migrants at the JCCA site, lohud.com said.
Fulgenzi and officials at JCCA declined to comment to The Post last week due to the pending litigation.
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