While Nobody Was Looking...

Tennis anyone? It seems at the last session of the state legislative meetings, NYS Assemblyman Tom “Proclamation” Abinanti slipped the Finneran Law amendment onto a legislative agenda chock full of bills, some worthwhile and some not, hoping it would be passed as a matter of routine, rather than need. And so it was. The flawed Finneran Law amendment succeeded in being passed either under the cover of darkness or the wanton desire to leave this part-time job behind for the summer and the farewell frat party off-campus!  As much as ABG would like to list what other bills than the Finneran Law amendment were passed into law, it is practically impossible to find a complete list we could post. 3,809 new bills were introduced in 2012. Of the 571 bills which passed both houses in 2012, 150 were holdovers from the previous year, and 421 were first introduced in the second year of the session. ABG wonders if this amendment would stand on it’s merit if it weren’t buried under stacks of other bills? Probably not. But it’s of no matter now, payback is payback, and it’s on the governor’s desk.

Now that the Finneran Law amendment has been passed, what will that mean to the Town? According to The Paul, “This is very significant. Getting this approved is very helpful for the town. It’s going to provide more recreation to people who enjoy tennis at no cost to the taxpayers. It’s a win-win, a real no-brainer.” The only “no-brainer” here is The Paul. If he had chosen to enter into a contract with the County under then County Executive Andy Spano to run WestHelp at the Westchester Community campus in Valhalla, the Town would be making at least $100k a month! But since his payoff to the Valhalla School District was proven illegal in court, and he and his Stepford Board found guilty of illegal financial transactions to the Valhalla School District, and the Valhalla School District ordered to pay restitution, he decided to do what he does best: a deflection campaign! He started selling a Finneran Law amendment for bubbles. It’s true, bad ideas don’t go away, they just get rewrapped and resold.

All of the mayors for the Villages protested this amendment. They unanimously felt it was not written well enough to protect everyone in the Town, both the Unincorporated residents and the Villages. This unevenly written amendment was doing the Town a disservice. It didn’t matter. The Paul said it was okay and he will have “Proclamation Tom” push it in the state assembly. Residents, or as The Paul prefers to label them, “the complainers”, cited numerous reasons to not move forward with this. Again, it didn’t matter. According to The Paul, the Town stands to make a couple of million dollars over the course of the fifteen year contract so we’re doing this! His flawed argument can easily be rebuked. If someone makes $50k a year, in the course of twenty years they will have earned a million dollars. Hence, they’d be millionaires. What’s that you say? You wouldn’t be a millionaire because you had expenses and other expenditures? Of course, you’d be right. That’s why when you factor all of the contingencies into Bubble-Boy’s argument, you can easily see why this won’t work out the way he says it will.

Every time a discussion about The Paul’s actions comes to light, which is happening more often, the accompanying question is usually, “ Follow the money,” or “Who gains from this?” In this case, Sportime, who operates an arcade business in the north section of the Unincorporated portion of Greenburgh, known as North Elmsford. After Sportime closes it’s cash register draw, it will be GameOn’s turn on the Veteran Park tennis courts. Sportime backed out of the deal back in 2005 when they learned Unincorporated residents would not be able to be charged by Sportime if they used the tennis courts. The new agreement doesn’t have that provision. Finally, the new agreement must still be autographed by the Governor to take effect. Let’s hope it’s not another “done-deal.”


The public hungers for pellucid and honest representation with Greenburgh’s leaders. Instead we get more back-room deals, developer concessions, bureaucratic runarounds and more shady deals than one community should have to deal with in a lifetime. Bubbles are not going to cure the financial ills created by The Paul’s administration. It’s been so long since we’ve had any real accountability in Greenburgh that undoing the quagmire he’s created throughout the Town will be a daunting task for anyone gutsy enough up to the challenge. We hope there is that someone out there. We can only hope.