A Hen Island homeowner for over 17 years, Ray Tartaglione served as Corporate President of Kuder Island Colony Inc., the Hen Island holding corporation, from 2000-2002. When Mr. Tartaglione began to question why island conditions, such as the dubious sewage disposal and makeshift water collection systems could not be improved, he was stonewalled by fellow board members and eventually voted off the board by a majority of shareholders.

In 2007 Mr. Tartaglione was forced to begin legal actions and a public awareness campaign in order to force remediation of the health, safety and environmental issues that had gone unchecked for years.

While Mr. Tartaglione’s methods of drawing attention to the unsafe and illegal conditions on Hen Island were seen by some as controversial, the pressure from his disclosures resulted in the dismissal of two successive Rye political administrations as the voting public searched for a political leader who would no longer tolerate selectively enforced health, safety and environmental laws in Rye.