The Paul had craftily ignored requests from the Spano Administration over three years ago to renew the $1.2 million lease back when Spano was still the county executive. There was obviously an ulterior motive behind his refusal to renew: more votes for himself and even his “opposition”. He knew if he didn’t renew the lease, he could intentionally let the units fall into disrepair, vandalism and destruction and then say despondently, “These units need too much money invested in them to save, they must be destroyed as they are uninhabitable!”
The scheme was hatched. He informed his Stepford Board that they must sing the same song or risk expulsion from The Paul’s Circle of Trust, invoking the Sonya Brown clause. They concurred with the requisite, “Yes, m’Lord.” Seated to the right of The Paul was Kevin “The Henchman” Morgan, who scorned, “You will comply.” Newcomer Jones tendered temporary resistance by abstaining from attendance when a vote was necessary to move the plan forward. One demerit earned.
The Paul, ever adept with diversion, deflection and deceit, then formulated the next part of his plan. He found a likely subject that might be interested in occupying the property once the units were destroyed in the Ferncliff School. We imagine Sheehan might have asked The Paul, “But what of the County rental contract with the Town? Even as a non-practicing attorney you know it’s a breach on contract if we don’t rent these affordable units to people in need of homes?” And with a quick and surprising follow-up, Diana “Sleepy” Juettner might have asked “How about our own Greenburgh Housing Authority list of over two hundred and fifty people in need of homes? Can’t we put them in there?” Enraged, we can almost hear The Paul yell at them, “ENOUGH! IT’S NOT ABOUT HOUSING! IT’S ABOUT GETTING VOTES IN THE NEXT ELECTION! Pay attention people. If we get rid of housing the homeless in Valhalla and get rid of WestHelp, we’ll get more votes from that part of Greenburgh. Don’t you get it?”
Ken Jones, may have asked The Paul, “Can you win a fight with the County Legislators or can you get them to go along with this?” The Paul responded confidently, “The only one who will be a problem is Alfreda Williams. She’s still mad because when she wouldn’t play along, I threw her off the Board and put Beville in her place. Astorino is a slam-dunk, he’s in my pocket on this, his guy McCormack and the new legislator, whats-his-name Smith. They’ll all go along because they’ll get the votes too once the homeless are gone. Hell, this was going to be the best payoff ever! It was all working until Bernstein and Rosenberg got in the way. I’m telling you it was foolproof!”
On Monday, December 3, the Town will receive bids for the use of the WestHELP property. It appears that Ferncliff is in the lead as the preferred candidate. While it looks sincere, it’s all moot as The Paul will continue his “tear it down” mantra and insist the Town enter a long-term lease for the property with Ferncliff. Plus, it’s not up to The Paul to decide what can be done with this property. Ferncliff is a for-profit school for developmentally disabled children. They seek to build a new residential school and facility to replace a Yonkers facility which they will be forced to leave. Why wouldn’t The Paul offer the old Frank’s Nursery property on Dobbs Ferry Road. According to The Paul the Ferncliff deal is worth more than the GameOn 365 deal. The operative word here seems to be “deal”.
The Ferncliff proposal was turned down by the County Board of Legislators because the Town's contractual rights to the WestHELP property mandate the 20-year old county-owned apartments be used for low and moderate income housing. After allowing the contractual lapse, a SUNY Purchase representative looked at the facility in hopes of using it for student housing, as it is currently on SUNY property (the WCC campus is a SUNY facility). He found that with the disrepair and now mold conditions, the apartments would require about $20k each for renovation to make them livable by students. Given the state’s fiscal troubles, ABG doesn’t see SUNY or the state stepping up to take these over anytime soon. Although, this would be a great usage for them.
The Paul has made alliances with an overwhelming majority of residents from the Mayfair Knollwood community who have opposed this housing since it’s inception. They claim it’s too close to their homes. Ironically, these “NIMBY-ers” are a mile away from the facility and the housing is secured on the Westchester Community College campus in a fenced-in area that the Town erected. So, by knowingly choosing to not spend any town money to maintain the 108 apartments from September 2011, when the contract expired, The Paul guaranteed the apartments to be uninhabitable and gifted their destruction to the Mayfair Knollwood community!
While the Town has lost the $1.2 million dollars annually by not renewing the contract, The Paul is claiming that if the Ferncliff deal had been approved, “the town would have received about $530,000 a year in rent.” Of course, without New York State agreeing to fund it, the Town gets nothing! The Paul is pushing to keep the property from being used for low and moderate income housing regardless of whether the deal happens or not. THAT’s how all the politicians will get their votes.
The Paul and his Board have not posted financial resources in this year’s 2013 town budget for any repairs or maintenance of the facility. This indicates that The Paul isn’t planning on doing anything with this property except tear it down. ABG believes he will continue to bemoan the Westchester County Board of Legislators as resisting his plans to raze the facility and lease it to Ferncliff. The County Board of Legislators threatened to take the WestHELP property away from the Town for violating the terms of its lease and maintained it must be used for low and moderate income housing. ABG believes they should do just that! He’s even challenged them to attend a meeting as a publicity stunt we hope they won’t dignify by attending.
It’s a shame that this has been allowed to intentionally happen right before everybody’s eyes and no one, especially the County landlord, has acted to stop it. ABG believes the County Legislators, the County Legal Department and yes, the County Executive need to get off their vote-purchasing bandwagon and do the right thing! They should initiate an action against The Paul and his Board forcing the Town to renovate the facility to habitable status and either put people in it who are homeless, abuse victims, veterans or students and start utilizing the 108 apartments as intended and collecting rent. If the Town will not do so, the County should immediately take the property back, begin renovations and get it into a ready-to-use condition. By letting this valuable asset decay, nobody but a few politicians, and most importantly The Paul can come out ahead. It's time for everyone to stop playing games with this existing and vital housing, fix it up and get people living there. We can only hope.
So students who are not disabled would be an appropriate use of the property (SUNY Purchase)while disabled students would not? You have some nerve to call others racist when it us obvious that you harbor serious prejudices against low income developmentally disabled children.
ReplyDeleteYou are disgusting.
Your bias for the destruction of good, affordable housing is clouding your ability to see what Feiner is doing by trying to pit disabled/special needs kids against everyone else. At issue id feiner's decision to allow 108 usable apartments be allowed to fall into such disrepair that the only thing to do is tear them down. His tactic of using the originally unsuspecting Ferncliff as his bargaining chip for screwing the Town by not renewing the contract is a common one. You fell for it hook line and sinker.
ReplyDeleteThe units were looked at by a SUNY representative to see if they could or should be used by SUNY students. This would be a good use of the apartments, whether special needs students or not. Using them for homeless, seniors, veterans, special needs and/or hurricane victims would be a good use of them. Tearing down 108 apartments to build 50 or 60 new ones is not a good or smart use for them.
Again, at issue is less about who goes in there but the motivation behind all the players. And, in this down economy, Ferncliff will not be receiving money to move there from the state - a requirement for the $500k rent to happen. Cuomo built these apartments and will not likely want to follow Feiner’s plans to destroy them. If Ken Jenkins had a set, he would take the apartm,ents back and psuh Feiner out of the scene. But he won't.
Also due to the economy, I'm sure Ferncliff could find beau coup properties in the area if they just look and stop buying snake oil from Feiner.
Keep letting our paying students live at the Mariot Hotel in Tarrytown. That's a smart thing to do - NOT!
ReplyDelete