$2,000 Mailings or AAA Rating?

The Paul enjoys using the media to his advantage. You’ll see the weekly opinion papers, along with the Journal News “reporting” something The Paul did or didn’t do, thinks is necessary or not, all while solving someone else’s problems. Rarely does he do something that truly merits the paper his press release is written on. And, now with email, the sky is literally the limit.

His latest tact is to do individual mailings to constituents via snail mail, his obvious one-man effort to save the United States Postal Service. The postage is at a reduced bulk rate of .22¢ each. The amount of residents in the Town is roughly 90k. Doing some simple math and you’ll see it’s approximately $2,000 per mailing! We imagine the printing, done in an unmarked room in Town Hall that most won’t have access to, is completed and given to unsuspecting interns or artwork-hanging patronage job holders at $60k per year, to stuff the envelopes on the taxpayer “dime”. If a taxpaying resident requested anything printed from Town Hall, they would be charged .25¢ per page! As an aside, ABG believes the first copy of anything requested by a resident from the Town should be a no charge! The taxes we pay should go toward more than salaries, pet programs and special interests. While The Paul may not like it, we pay for that copier, it’s related supplies, paper and the people operating it. It’s not there for his personal no cost campaigning.

Dated April 20, 2012, The Paul sent out his latest campaign letter, under the guise of a Town update, announcing that Standard and Poor has assigned the Town the highest bond rating – AAA. Ironic that the rating comes from Standard and Poor, which is how most Unincorporated residents in the Town feel. Lower standard of living and poorer. Regardless, the rating is something that gets attention. What doesn’t get attention is that the Town’s rating is noted as “... Greenburgh’s management practices are considered good under the S&P Financial Management Assessment”. So, what does this mean?

The AAA rating as defined by S&P is “an obligation rated ‘AAA’ has the highest rating assigned by Standard and Poor’s. The obligor’s capacity to meet its financial commitment on the obligation is extremely strong.” It doesn’t say the obligor is a good manager or member of good management or that the yearly double-digit tax increases pummeling it’s residents is good management. It doesn’t discuss the exodus of over-taxed businesses that cannot afford the relentless tax increases for programs they can’t take advantage of. Nor that it’s residents are selling their lifelong homes because the taxes that had been so affordable thirty and even twenty years ago, attracting them to the Town, are causing residential and business bankruptcies at alarming rates.

What it does mean is the Town can borrow money at a lower interest rate and quoting The Paul, “...saving you money.” But what if you don’t borrow money? What then? This is the crux of the issue. With all the guilty verdicts from lawsuits against The Paul and his Boards, we will soon be needing a lot more money to pay off his illegal actions. But to date, the Town’s borrowing has been minimal and easily repaid. What hasn’t happened is major borrowing to address issues that are eroding our Town from within, such as infrastructure upgrades, flooding, traffic congestion, over development, back room deals and the like.According to The Paul, we’ll be saving scads of money by taking away leaf pickups and requiring residents to bag their leaves. If you don’t borrow money, you can’t hurt your credit rating. That’s what’s going on here.

Having an S&P, AAA rating is only good up to a point. Here, with the routinely mandated double-digit tax increases, it’s easy to pay your bills. Hence, the rating. Dipping into the reserve funds to limit those same tax increases can only last for so long. Balancing the budget with layoffs and subsequent suicides doesn't corroborate good management. Having a Town Board rubber-stamp inane, ludicrous and unsustainable ideas doesn’t indicate good management. Espousing the saving of a bridge, closing a nuclear power plant, eliminating a branch of government without a plan to support it’s responsibilities isn’t indicating good management. Likewise, repeatedly creating “commissions and committees comprised of cronies, and being found guilty in various level of courts doesn’t indicate good management, leadership or stewardship. What it indicates is the need for a change.

The smokescreen The Paul is trying to obscure his poor actions with are not working as well for him anymore. More and more people are starting to pay attention to everything he is doing. Frankly, we’re glad to finally see it. As more and more people get involved, perhaps we can see Greenburgh turn around. ABG believes in Greenburgh! Let’s bag The Paul and change things for the better. We can only hope.