The Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) on Monday is set to vote on an extension of a sales tax abatement for Amytra Development LLC, Eldred Entertainment, LLC and Eldred Hospitality, LLC from November 1, 2021 through April 30, 2022.
A copy of the resolution is not yet published but the IDA has previously granted extensions to the companies.
The new Eldred Preserve on Route 55 opened in early July to great fanfare. It was originally supposed to open in the summer of 2019 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Woodstock.
The three entities named in the IDA resolution are owned by Daniel Silna and wife, Joan, who for years have lived part-time in White Lake. They also have residences in Boca Raton and in Saddle River, New Jersey. Amytra Development is headquartered in Carlstadt, NJ.
Former Sullivan County Legislature Chair Scott Samuelson is the chief operating officer of Eldred Hospitality, LLC.
(While in public office as a County legislator, Samuelson worked closely and quietly with Millennium Pipeline and other County officials to help the company find a suitable consultant. That company, approved by Millennium, was retained to conduct a baseline study of possible health hazards near the Highland Compressor Station. The Eldred Preserve sits on property adjacent to the compressor station - and Silna sold 80 acres of his Preserve property to the pipeline company in 2017. A second, more comprehensive health study of the area near the compressor station and Preserve never happened, even though there was an initial bidding process by the County).
Silna also owns a company known as "DJS NY RE, LLC out of Boca Raton. He has used that company during the past few years to purchase and/or transfer property within the Town of Bethel, according to records in the Sullivan County Clerk's Office.
He and his late brother Ozzie - with a slam dunk from their attorney, Donald Schupak - engineered the most lucrative television royalty deal in sports history in the late 70s after their St. Louis Spirits team (from the disbanded American Basketball Association) was not invited to join the National Basketball Association in 1976.
A final settlement of their decades-long litigation with the National Basketball Association in 2014 netted the Silnas $800 million, according to multiple media reports. But the Silnas claimed that they lost some of their funds in the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme. It's unclear how much money Daniel Silna recovered from the Madoff bankruptcy after a court-appointed trustee, Irving Picard, handled the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities and victims' claims.