A Questionable Appraisal

ABG was finally able to find and review the appraisal for the former Frank’s Nursery site at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road. Our findings, while not revolutionary, raise a few questions as to what instructions the appraisal company and their appraiser were given toward the property. During the entire period of this fiasco induced by The Paul, which has been going along for about two years now, there have been numerous “plays” by The Paul, his Town “Go Along” Board, and Tim “Remediation” Lewis. Ironically, the appraisal uses some of the same language as GameOn 365’s website.

This whole debacle began with The Paul secretly meeting with the owners of the GameOn 365, who convinced The Paul to let them “have” this property for basically a monthly maintenance fee under the guise of a deflated “rent”. He agreed. Next, he enlisted his buddies Tom “Proclamation” Abinanti and Andrea “Platitudes” Stewart-Cousins, to submit an amendment to the Finneran Law during the wee morning hours of their respective Albany legislatures immediately prior to their end-of-year recess. This practice has been performed traditionally in Albany for years. Apparently, Abinanti who insisted he was not a career politician when he originally ran for State Assembly after his 20-year tenure as a County Legislator, knew all about this maneuver and jumped right onto it when The Paul beckoned. Stewart-Cousins obligingly followed suit. It’s disappointing that they would just go along with The Paul’s request and not ask any residents’ from the neighborhood they’re supposed to represent for an opinion.

Knowing his Board would vote through any scheme he asks for, The Paul fabricated a pretext of needing only a lease with this piece of property exclusively with GameOn 365, without putting the property up for sale as required by law or offering it to the public for a Request For Proposal (RFP). Once he made the illegal misstep of not selling the property as mandated by law and promising GameOn 365 sole participation for the property, GameOn 365 was able to solicit investors for their Sports Bubble idea. Notwithstanding that the property reverted back to Residential Zoning after six months of being foreclosed upon and unused by the Town, The Paul skirted the zoning issue each time it was raised. A fervent proponent of spot-zoning, The Paul isn’t worried about zoning restrictions.

To add insult to injury, The Paul needed another diversion away from this illegal deal – and quickly. Planning ahead to the 2013 election, The Paul knew he had upset a lot of tried-and-true supporters and needed to make up lost votes. So he casually allowed the lease with WestHelp and the County of Westchester lapse, claiming then County Executive Andrew Spano was the one who didn’t renew the lease. When proof substantiated that it was The Paul, not Spano, who didn’t renew the lease, The Paul fabricated emails he supposedly sent to Spano requesting renewal. Again, these were proven to be falsified emails. During that same time frame, the Fortress Bible Church lawsuit was adjudicated against The Paul, current Councilwoman Diana Juettner and the Town, citing they lied under oath, discriminated against the African American Church and destroyed evidence. It is a well publicized fact that The Paul has experience with evidence tampering. An Appeals Court denied the Towns appeal of the decision, determining the guilt of The Paul, Juettner and the Town! We await the judgement which many say could go as high as $8M!

Simon Cohen, a nearby resident to the affected area, started a website called HelpBurstTheBubble.com and did a mailing throughout portions of the Town attempting to stop the GameOn 365 proposal. His contentions were numerous as he was against the size, use of the property, the illegal lease deal, the favoritism practiced by The Paul and his Board. He quickly gained a foothold and many rallied with him in an attempt to halt this out-of-control, illegal and improper “done-deal”!

During the summer months, The Paul, ever-shrewd and manipulating, offered an outdoor Town Hall style meeting on the property to answer residents questions and concerns. He canceled the first meeting although about 100 residents are said to have shown up. The following night there was the actual,  official meeting. ABG witnessed the condescending attitude that owner Martin Hewitt had that evening as he was given the microphone and stated to the crowd, “Here’s how this is going to work. You raise your hand, I’ll call on you, you can ask your question and I’ll answer it. I won’t answer questions that we’ve already covered.” This understandably irritated a large portion of the crowd seeking answers. And when questions were repeatedly not answered in lieu of softball questions, the meeting quickly devolved. Plus, GameOn 365’s bussed-in supporters tried to shout down residents as they spoke.

Many residents, including the G10, repeatedly suggested to The Paul and his Board that a fair market appraisal be performed. There were many numbers continually tossed about and many insisted a real number be had. The Paul refused, knowing that without having an accurate number, it would be difficult to makle a case against his illegal plan. After Town Assessor Edye McCarthy insisted that the property values The Paul was using were inaccurate, she refused to answer when pushed for an approximate value of the property either “as is” or remediated, saying once a structure was placed on the property, the value would change. Everyone understood that. This just seemed to be more obfuscation by The Paul’s administration.

The Paul was forced into a corner with his new offer to sell the property to GameOn 365 in a number of ways. Stall as much as he might, GameOn 365 doesn’t have the money to purchase the property and is solely relying on investors to cough up the money. But he also couldn’t sell without an appraisal of the property so he finally, and begrudgingly, had an appraisal done. As you can see in the last line of the picture below, the appraisal states that the property value is based on remediation. We find it difficult to believe that an appraiser would give a valuation of a property on a possible future condition, or a guess, which is what this appears to be. It is also questionable that the appraiser came in with a valuation at the same amount as GameOn 365 offered for the property. Hmmm?

HelpBurstTheBubble took the next step and initiated a community supported lawsuit against The Paul, his Town Board and GameOn 365 to stop the madness. No stranger to lawsuits, The Paul dug his heels in even more. As the court date approached, The Paul no doubt saw the light or received some real legal advice, invariably from someone other than the Town’s legal department who told him he would lose – again. So he decided to “sort of” follow the law, which basically states that any foreclosed property the Town acquires must be sold. So, The Paul announced the sale of 715 Dobbs Ferry Road to GameOn 365. This was simply a deftly executed move by The Paul. House of Sports’ owners decided enough was enough! They went public with an offer to the Town for the property of about twice as much as GameOn 365, for $3.5M for the property!

This new dilemma for The Paul and the Town Board presents uncharted territory for them: it’s an ethical and even a moral choice they must make to do the right thing. Since they are representatives of the residential and business residents of the Town, it is incumbent upon them to do what is in the best interest of the Town and our finances. Since The Paul has cost the Town approximately $12M this last year, the House of Sports offer is major bailout compared to the GameOn 365 offer. Since he refuses to put it out for an RFP, we urge him to take the highest offer for the property. Tim “Remediation” Lewis has stated they gave their word to GameOn 365 for the property to develop. Lewis also gave his word to the public that the remediation would not cost more than $100K. Just the testing went beyond that! That they gave their word based on an illegal deal makes this a no-brainer for any of us with a conscience. As such, we think the best course of action for the Town is to finally do the right thing and either sell the property to House of Sports or advertise it for RFPs.

Another point that is critical with this property is that The Paul has only entertained building another business at this location to replace Frank’s Nursery. The property has reverted back to residential zoning and the neighborhoods in the area would like to see it remain residential. ABG agrees. There are too few opportunities to create or expand new or existing neighborhoods that provide various types of housing in our Town once a business leaves. This is a golden opportunity for the Town to expand our residential tax base.

The Town should get as much as we possibly can for this property to help offset the financial plight The Paul has forced us into. The Town Board must accept House of Sports’ offer if they refuse to put this out for RFP. We can only hope.