If you are wondering how the City of Newburgh suddenly became the primary target to host the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, blame it on the media.

Newburgh Mayor Nicholas Valentine has become quite the national news figure this past week after being interviewed by more than a hundred reporters eager to know why he’s suggesting his city would be an appropriate host for the trial of accused 9/11 terrorists.
Piqued by the picture of Valentine being interviewed Sunday night on primetime CBS television news while strolling up Broadway in Newburgh, we asked Valentine how it all started.

“I was talking on the phone with a New York Post reporter about possible sites for the trial,” the mayor said Monday afternoon. “I was looking out the window, staring at the new courthouse during the interview.”

Valentine said he had just told the reporter that he didn’t think Stewart Airport was a good site and that, “in my opinion, West Point would be a horrible location.”

Just as I looked through the window at the Courthouse, the reporter asked, ‘What about your city?’”

“I told him we have a $20 million courthouse that we were forced by the State to build and can’t afford to run.

“It would be a perfect site for the trial.”

That’s how it started, Valentine told us.

“Since then, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Ninety percent of the responses have been yes; 10 percent no,” Valentine said.

Valentine said he has reached out to the other members of the Newburgh City Council, only failing to connect with Councilwoman Marge Bell because she was working at the time at her school job.

“I walked next door and discussed it with Chris [Bello],” he recalled. “She said it was ‘worth exploring.’”

“I talked with Curlie [Dillard] and he said to ‘go for the whole deal.’”

Bello, when contacted by a reporter Tuesday morning, said that he pitched it as the solution to many of the City’s problems.

“We can get 10 police officers for 10 years,” he told me, “and we can pay off the courthouse building.”

“He pitched it like all our troubles will be over,” Bello said.

Having Bello and Valentine pitching from the same mound can safely be called a rarity. On Tuesday, she said she thinks his approach “wasn’t well thought out.”

“This was like a Ralph Kramden moment, then common sense takes over,” she said. “It wasn’t long before my phone started ringing,” she said.

“What did you guys do? callers started asking.

“We didn’t do anything. The mayor just has stardust in his eyes,” she said.

“This isn’t good.”

She said Valentine doesn’t seem to understand that the federal government isn’t going to just funnel $200 million into the City of Newburgh’s General Fund. She said she was concerned that having the 9/11 terrorist trials here would totally shut down Newburgh’s streets.

“So many people would be hurt,” she said. “If customers can’t get to you, you’re shut down,” she said, suggesting that all the publicity is going to the mayor’s head.

Valentine said that he’s in a holding pattern now that he’s expressed an interest in hosting the trial. The next step, if there is to be a next step, is up to the President [Obama].

Valentine was asked how much of a bearing the City’s financial hole has on his expression of interest?

“It has a whole lot to do with it,” he said. “They’re talking about $200 million a year. I discussed the possibility with [Chief] Eric [Paolilli] and he said ‘If I’m given the resources, I can make this place safe.’”

“The devil’s in the details,” the mayor said.

“I’d never allow anything that would endanger the public,” he said. “This is a two-year project before it even starts. This would be like setting up for an Olympics. It would be like an economic engine for this area – food, hotels. There would be thousands of media covering this.”

County Executive Edward Diana doesn’t see it in the same light as does Mayor Valentine. Not even close.

Diana held a news conference last Friday with Orange County Sheriff Carl Dubois and a number of state and county officials. He said they will do everything legally possible to keep the trials from being held in Orange County.

“If that’s closing roads, if that’s suing the federal government, I will do that,” he said.
Diana was 180 degrees away from Valentine on seeing the trials as a financial opportunity.

“That’s nonsense,” he said.

Diana went so far as to suggest the trials be held in Chicago, President Obama’s hometown.

“I knew I had to get the attention of the President of the United States,” he said.

By ALLAN GAUL
agaul@tcnewspapers.com