They Should Resign

Rain, rain, go away, come back another day. Everyone should recognize the lyrics from this old nursery rhyme. The Paul sings a somewhat different tune, “Residents, residents, go away, come back another day.” It seems The Paul repeatedly takes the proverbial wrong courses of action at every turn and every venue regarding the Town’s involvement, finances and now tenuous future. According to him, it’s the residents that continually get in his way of doing what he wants. Although the residents are probably singing, “Paul, Paul go away, don’t come back on any day.”

Flooding
The weather experts claim we are scheduled to be hit with another 100-year storm two months after the one year anniversary of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene. It defeats the purpose of calling it a 100-Year Storm if it’s happening every year, doesn’t it? Speaking of experts, one year ago, The Paul hired Jonathan Raser, an engineer and expert specializing in flood mitigation to review the conditions in the Town and seek assistance for the flooded residents. After collecting his somewhat substantial fee, and securing absolutely no funds for the residents or the Town, Mr. Raser hi-tailed it back to New Jersey whence he came, offering no resulting help, funds, or hope! The sum of his efforts? A letter to the flood-prone residents of the Town that they do not qualify for any aid and basically they are on their own. As he was leaving, he might have been overheard saying, “My bill is on The Paul’s desk, see ya suckers!” 

This once again imbues the well-known deflection tactic of The Paul seeming to care. When the flooding from Hurricane Irene hit the region and Greenburgh in particular, it took The Paul quite some time to leave the stately Boulder Ridge gated community to visit his serfdom. But once he received word that the news cameras, reporters and crews were out covering the effects of the storm in Greenburgh, he sniffed them out like a bloodhound that caught a scent. He visited Hartsdale, Fulton Park and Babbitt Court, offering any affected and suffering flood victims another false hope, this time of FEMA home buyouts. He corralled numerous Town employees, working for four years without a contract, to receive a little overtime picking up debris. These dedicated workers came through as usual and then The Paul did what he does best, deflect, ignore, babble on and disappear.

In spite of The Paul intruding with the victims’ cleanups spewing vague ideas that accumulated no traction, his next best idea was to request every other politician do something to help these beleaguered and beaten residents. After all, he’s done everything he can, which in reality was nothing. In fact, he wrote, talked and postured about how many other politicians he contacted deluging various residents with daily mailings stating as much. After the media left, so did The Paul - back to his sanctuary of the secure confines of Boulder Ridge, where flooding, traffic, homeless people, sports bubbles, over-sized stores, concerned citizens, environmental studies, and projects that devalue our residential areas are not an issue.

But why do these areas have such frequent flooding where there never was any? Overdevelopment! The state renovated I-287 and the Bronx River Parkway, routing their water runoff into Fulton Park. The Town has done nothing to address this. Nothing! The Paul helped develop the 9A corridor with more to come, routing that water into Babbitt Court. You might ask, “Don’t we have a Planning Department to oversee and control the development throughout the Town?” We used to. Most projects they “touch” mysteriously become bigger and bigger with the Commissioners involvement. They have even helped developers to find ways around zoning and planning limitations. Quietly, without fanfare they changed the departments name. It’s now known as the Department of Community Development and Conservation. The name change, slightly sexier and more encompassing with political correctness sudden makes things all better. The cost in damage to residents: MILLIONS.

WestHelp
When the County leased the WestHelp facility to the Town, it was a financially secure and rewarding deal for the Town. People in need of housing had a brand new, extremely nice place to live and the Town was earning $1.2 million a year in income. It was a sweetheart deal for then School Board President Michael Smith, now a Republican County Legislator representing the same area. Mayfair-Knollwood Civic Association former President, Ned McCormack, who is now Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino’s Communications Director, was also against the WestHelp deal. You see, they were both on the Valhalla School Board and protested putting those horrible homeless people on the campus of Westchester Community College and into the Valhalla School System without “something in return” for them. Did you know that County Executive Rob Astorino has now endorsed The Paul’s convoluted and illegal plan to tear down the facility to lease the property to a school for fifty years? Why? Why would Rob Astorino do that when all of the County Legislators are against it and trying to optimize housing for the low income and homeless population throughout the county? Partisan politics? Hardly. The County Executive is trying to help his Director of Communications and one of only a few minority legislative allies he has in the County Legislature get along with this neighborhood and get votes through a payback. Payback? Why? 

Not to be outdone, or to lose a vote, The Paul reached a financial arrangement with the Town Board, with no checks, balances or scrutiny to pay off the Valhalla School District. Essentially, he provided them a bribe, under the guise of an “educational grant” to accept these kids. There’s your reason. How they would use the money would be up to the school board for the school district - in essence for the children. So, what did they do with the money? They took a cruise and forced the taxpayers to foot the bill! You can read more at: valhallavoice.blogspot.com/. Fortunately, the Town of Greenburgh had two residents that pursued legal action to overturn this illegal deal in court and won! Now the Valhalla School District will have to return a portion of the monies to the Town in an agreed upon settlement. Something is better than nothing. The cost for this screw-up: $1.2 MILLION per year.

Referendum/Sports Bubble
Before Frank’s Nursery defaulted on their taxes and before the property was foreclosed upon with ownership assumed by the Town, The Paul met with several people representing themselves as a company called GameOn 365. Knowing of The Paul’s non-existent business acumen, they salivated over the possibility of acquiring that property from the Town for a song. These are stockbrokers apparently tired of competing with Charles Schwab and web-based competitors for peanuts and saw this as their big jump onto “Easy Street”. Knowing how to manipulate people into buying worthless stocks, they must have thought it easy to convince a bunch of their stockbroker-jock friends to invest in this deal. The Paul met secretly and communicated with them to position them to be the preferred recipient of The Paul’s good graces when it became time to unload said property.

Immediately after the Town assumed ownership, the public cried for the property to be used as a temporary library. Unassuming as most people in the Town are about what motivates The Paul, many decried foul knowing the history of this property as contaminated. What to do? If The Paul pushed for the library to relocate, they would be exposing “the children” (as well as adults) to toxic chemicals and who knows what else. The Paul quickly needed to deflect; so the talk turned to using the land for a new and larger police station and court. At the last Town Board meeting, Councilman Morgan stated to a resident that the neighborhood overwhelmingly was against this. When did the Town Board start listening to it’s residents? You may recall at about the same time, The Paul announced his newest no/low cost plan to financially save the Town by having interns process millions of dollars worth of back-logged traffic tickets. Deflection at it’s best? You decide. The cost for this illegal deal: MILLIONS.

Fortress Bible

Back when Tom “Proclamation” Abinanti was a mere 20-year career County Legislator, he enjoyed a relative safe haven where he resided. Then an African American church from Mount Vernon, the Fortress Bible Church, purchased property nearby. Ever the close friend of The Paul, he may have mentioned to him his concern of their nearby move. What did The Paul do? He put up road blocks, delays, fees and requirements for them to have to meet in order to proceed ahead with their plans. What were their plans? They simply wanted to build a church and a school on the property they purchased.

Tim “Remediation” Lewis, not wanting to publicize his strategy for fighting the Fortress Bible case in court, remained silent. We’re sure this was mostly on the marching orders of The Paul. But silent he remained; and, so did the others in The Paul’s administration. Perhaps if they had shared their strategy, the residents might have been able to help them. Unfortunately for the Unincorporated residents of the Town, they LOST the court case and were found guilty of discrimination, perjury, willfully destroying evidence and more! The cost for this debacle: upwards of $8 MILLION.

The Paul’s entire administration is a model for mismanagement, misjudgment, misdirection, misspending and missed opportunities. The Paul has exhausted most normal routes to help the residents of the Town preserve what little is left of it. He and Town Planning Commissioner Thomas Madden are on a track to overdevelop what little areas of green is left in Greenburgh. Not sure about this? There is much more about The Paul’s and his Stepford Board’s actions that are crippling our Town. ABG has written repeatedly about it. The Paul and the Board should help the Town. They will do this when they resign. It has to end. We can only hope.