It Seems To Never End

One of the ABG staffers picked up the League of Women Voters of Westchester’s 2011 Voters Guide. It is produced through the generosity of the Generoso Pope Foundation of Tuckahoe, NY. We began to peruse the newsprint booklet to read what this crop of politicians and wannabe politicians were espousing. Like the class that cheats together off of the one smart kid in the room, all the candidates were saying the same thing. They all promised to work diligently/tirelessly, lower/cut taxes, improve efficiency through consolidation/public-private partnerships, work in a bipartisan way, look for new/innovative ways to save money while we maintain our critical services. Or, they have and will continue to serve honestly, fairly, treat everyone with respect/dignity, work hard, are dedicated, bipartisan, kept taxes low, helped/will help businesses/citizens, maintained services, will look for new ways to govern, and bring accountability to their office.

Then we get to our favorite bloviator, The Paul! His brief bio in the Voters Guide reads and we quote, “Reinvent government. Eliminate duplication. Push for more sharing/consolidation. Citizens commission reviewing aspects of budget. Eliminate arbitration panels. Reform civil service laws. Continue open government initiatives. My phone: 478-1219.” We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating, “Where do we start?”

Reinvent Government?
ABG will admit, he’s reinvented government, but it’s certainly not good government. Let’s see if we can list a few of the more obvious changes. First, at the beginning of each Town Board meeting, there is typically an hours worth of presentations, acknowledgments, performances and more. Rare is the night that the meeting, chock full of agenda items, starts on time and ends at a reasonable hour. It gives the Board time to weed out the uninitiated who show up on time to most likely protest something he and his Board have or are about to do but must leave for family care reasons, work the next day or simply, exhaustion and seeming death. The futility of government participation ‘by the people’ is easily stifled.

Silence Is Golden
First, the Town Clerk’s position should be to provide the written materials for the meeting, such as agendas, proposals, and to take minutes or to record the proceedings. Second, her role is not to speak. And, unless asked to clarify or acknowledge information pertinent to her office, she should spend the evening silently. Third, she, along with the Town Attorney sits with the Board at these meetings without ever offering a job-related opinion except when they try to shut The Paul down as he begins violating the public’s rights, promising things that are illegal, or just making an ass of himself.

Hide When It Gets Tough
When the vitriol gets too intense at Town Board meetings, even for The Paul, and the people are hampering his own agenda, the Town’s “Stepford” Board will adjourn to “executive session” where they can speed-vote his pet projects through unencumbered by the will or objections of the people. We’ve seen this so many times, we can almost predict when it will happen. This removes the moniker of ‘open government’ that is the Feiner mantra. Unfortunately, the media doesn’t challenge or follow what The Paul does, they only print what he says-and tells them to print. ABG has said it before, you can’t be a reporter by telephone. Get off your butts and attend the meetings to see and maybe report the truth for a change. You’ll see some real deception in play and maybe expose the corruption many have been relentless in fighting. You soon find yourself selling more newspapers.

Consolidation
Without giving too many examples, and they abound in Greenburgh, why not do consolidation within the Town before worrying about other aspects of government that the Supervisor has no involvement, responsibility or purview? Deflection. The Paul, in conjunction with the media concubines such as the Journal News, The Westchester Guardian, The Daily Greenburgh, a cousin to the Journal News also opperated by Gannett, and others, only has to issue a press release about something unrelated to Greenburgh and they will print it. In fact, they will print it repeatedly. He’s said open government so often, they now believe it too. He’s spoken about the Tappan Zee Bridge, eliminating County Government, consolidating fire districts and more. These are all issues he has no involvement in or skin-in-the-game. So why discuss it? Publicity and name recognition.

But how about real consolidation? How about eliminating the two recreation departments and consolidating them into one? How about doing away with the two commissioners for the same departments? How about having the two Town pools purchasing equipment as one? How about one budget instead of two? How about it Paul?

The people think they want consolidation, but don’t really understand what to consolidate. So, when The Paul says consolidate the Town’s three fire districts, he does a disservice to the residents. First, he appointed a puppet committee to investigate it, led by a convicted felon. Second, he doesn’t have the ability to dissolve and create the three fire districts into one. Third, the counter proposal to the committee’s (foregone) recommendation was totally ignored. Why? Fourth, when one member was assaulted by another, why wasn’t the attacker removed from the committee? It was a publicity farce done because ‘study money‘ was available.

The Paul also said Greenburgh should consolidate the Greenburgh Police Department and the Dobbs Ferry Police Department. Why those two in particular? According to then Police Chief John Kapica, it was because a state grant was available to do the study, even though there was never a glimmer that a consolidation of the two would ever happen. DF Police Chief George Longworth was looking for a promotion, having been the youngest police chief in Westchester. When it didn’t come to fruition, he got into bed with the Astorino camp. Now he’s the commissioner of the non-existant Westchester County Public Safety Department. In reality though, it’s just the County Police Parkway Patrol and Bomb squads. That’s another post for another time.

Eliminate and Reform
The Paul has twenty years to ‘reform civil service laws’ but has done nothing! ‘Continue open government initiatives’ is nothing more than politican-speak to say what the constituents will hear, the media will print, but ultimately says nothing. We don’t need more programs, committees, resident advisors or phony promises. We need politicians who will do the right thing. When was the last time Greenburgh saw the right thing? It’s hard to say, but we’re sure the media will print it when The Paul tells them to.