Admitting Guilt, Town Offers To Sell Property

In a stunning development just uncovered by ABG, The Paul has attempted to circumvent another guilty verdict by having the Town offer to sell the 715 Dobbs Ferry Road property, formerly the home of Frank’s Nursery, to the GameOn 365 Sports Bubble developer! In learning of The Paul’s reasoning, it cuts to multiple points made regarding the lawsuit currently underway by www.HelpBurstTheBubble.com, the Worthington-Woodlands Civic Association and numerous others that maintain The Paul and his Town Board have illegally signed a lease for the property to GameOn 365. During the last election, The Paul foisted an illegal referendum, judiciously worded, as he colluded to assist the GameOn 365 organization toward getting voter approval for their project.

The Paul has maintained the project has received overwhelming support from the Town’s voters. Technically, it did not. Out of the 9k or so people that voted in the election, a disproportionately small percentage of the Town’s population, the majority did vote in favor of the referendum, claiming the public recognizes the need for and benefits of an indoor/outdoor sports facility. Perhaps. By why hadn’t our sports professionals that run and maintain the TWO Town Recreation Departments recognize this need and act on it? Could it be because someone was offering a buck for an abandoned piece of property that no one wanted to touch because of it’s contamination, until The Paul promised another back room sweetheart deal?

The Paul maintains that by selling the property the Town will avoid unnecessary expense and time by not going to court. He’s right - of course that’s never mattered to him before - so why should it matter now? He maintains that there could be years of litigation. He’s right! The Town would have to continue paying taxes on the property. He’s right again. And the property, suffering from major contamination after being used as an Urban Renewal dump site for White Plains, would still need to be remediated. His real motivation for doing this is that by selling the property instead of leasing it, he negates another lawsuit and moves forward with a project only he sees a need for.

By eliminating the lease, the paradigm shifts dramatically. New Request For Proposals (RFP) might need to take place for a sale to happen. New environmental studies may also be needed. Until the sale is committed to by the Town, the lease is still active and cannot considered “over”, as The Paul would have us think. The issue of zoning also factors heavily into this piece of land. It is currently zoned for single-family residential use and would need to be zoned for commercial usage. It had previously been zoned commercial for Frank’s Nursery but reverted back to residential once the property lay vacant for six months.

ABG would recommend the lawsuit against the Town continue. The only purpose of this ploy by The Paul is to accomplish one thing: get GameOn 365 the deal he promised them! While the entire Town voted on the illegal referendum approving the GameOn 365 deal, The Paul knows the lawsuit will again prove his actions and methods were illegal and wrong. It also hurts one neighborhood that is not being allowed the right to control their destiny as The Paul put it in everyone else’s hands to decide if this neighborhood should get a bubble or not. This too is just wrong! By turning the game on (no pun) it’s heel and going a new direction, The Paul thwarts the will of a neighborhood to stay residential. He and his Board will rezone the property to whatever GameOn 365 asks for - residents be damned! A sale would have been the right thing to do in the very beginning when the Town acquired the property, with real bids after a real assessment. Now it seems a bit moot. Perhaps we should simply develop this property as another Town park and be done with all. We can only hope.