JEFFERSONVILLE – The Town of Callicoon has been embroiled in litigation for more than four years with the First United Methodist Church in Flushing, Queens, over religious tax exemptions. Town Supervisor Tom Bose revealed the news at the town board meeting on June 8, saying the litigation involved a whole tax exemption for a 70-acre parcel of land. 

The board unanimously voted to adopt the resolution to end litigation and accept the resulting settlement, which requires the town to refund the taxes that the church paid for its parcel, assessed at $300,000, for 2021, 2022, and 2023, at 2% interest per annum. The settlement also requires the town to pay the church’s printing costs for its respondent’s brief to the Court of Appeals in the amount of $1,202.04.

This settlement was reached after a New York Supreme Court trial in 2023 ruled in favor of granting the church a whole tax exemption. The town then brought the case in 2024 to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the Supreme Court’s decision. In a New York State Court of Appeals decision dated November 24, 2025, the lower courts’ decision was upheld, and the church was granted a whole tax exemption for 2021, 2022 and 2023.

“Most public boards would go into an executive session behind closed doors and speak about this because you are allowed to if it involves litigation,” said Bose. “I want everyone that pays taxes to know what this board and this town has done to try and fight off what I feel is another very unnecessary exemption.”

Bose said the Korean Methodist Church bought a parcel of 70 acres in Callicoon’s rural district and, wanting to use it for services and retreats, had applied for a religious exemption. Bose said, however, that is not a permitted use of land in Callicoon’s rural district.

“They never went to the planning board, they defied our code, they basically thumbed their noses at our town and applied for this. The town denied it,” said Bose, who concluded that “the end result isn’t what any one of us wanted.” 

Bose said Judge David Gandin from Ulster County ruled in favor of the church, even though they applied for an exemption for religious use without getting a special use permit from the Planning Board. Bose said that when Michael Altman, the church’s attorney, realized that the religious exemption was not allowed in Callicoon’s rural district, they changed their story; the church was suddenly interested in growing fruits and vegetables to be donated to the residents of Flushing, Queens.

Both the church and attorney could not be reached for comment before presstime. 

“This was a ruse,” said Bose, “this was a farce, this was a lie, people. I farm that land. My family has farmed that land for over 60 years. I continue to farm it today. I know firsthand what goes on and what doesn’t go on there.” Bose runs a dairy farm on an adjacent piece of land to the parcel at 229 Menges Rd., which court documents show was purchased by the church in 2018.

Bose characterized the church’s plot of “farming land” as miniscule and said they produced no food. “They harvested nothing, yet they provided as evidence, in a court, pictures of people taking boxes of food that said ‘New York City Food,’” Bose said. He said Judge Gandin ruled that they could do it as an accessory use because they are a church in Flushing.

“That didn’t sit well with us,” said Bose, whose board then went to the Appellate Division to appeal the decision. After losing in a close decision there, the board took their case to the New York State Court of Appeals.

“The board stood strong, our attorney argued in front of the State Court of Appeals, in a very narrow 4-3 decision, we lost that decision,” Bose said. “So that piece of property was granted a whole exemption from school, town, county, fire, ambulance, library [taxes].”

Bose said because of the court’s 4-3 decision in favor of the church, the town must refund the taxes paid. “During this whole process, the property owner must pay the tax,” Bose said. “But once the court makes the decision that they are exempt, now the town, the county, the fire district, ambulance district, school district, all have to refund.” 

Bose thanked the Sullivan West School District for paying a portion of the town’s legal expenses, which Bose said totaled approximately $18,000 for the town. Bose revealed the ordeal’s silver lining: the church sold their parcel of land in 2025, putting it back on the tax rolls. “It is my opinion, if we did not fight this the way we did, I don’t believe the Korean church would have ever sold that property, and they would be receiving a whole property tax exemption. We’ve got a 70-acre parcel with two homes on it, that’s back on the tax roll so we’ll recoup that money.”