The Town Will Pay Extra

Last Thursday The Paul decided to announce the work that would be performed on the pool at the Theodore Young Community Center. Recent work was completed on the gymnasium hardwood floor after flooding from Hurricane Sandy to make it a concrete floor. This should allow better cleanup and endurance after the next flood and over the long haul. It’s interesting that residents received little or no help from any municipal entity but money was apportioned to this Fairview center almost immediately after the flooding! ABG appreciates the value the TYCC plays in the community. ABG also believes helping the residents recover from devastation from Hurricanes might be considered more worthy as these residents are often times unable to continue to live in their homes after these events. That is, if you believe government’s role is to protect it’s people.

The latest infrastructure failure from The Paul and his Stepford Board has been ignoring is the Town’s pools. After kicking the can down the road for the last several years, the Board in it’s flawed wisdom decided to instead of repairing the pool at Veteran Park, they would add a huge pool liner to it to stave off more costly repairs. Why not borrow the money necessary to make the repairs needed by utilizing our AAA Bond Rating The Paul consistently touts every change he gets and do the repairs? Could it be he’s saving up to pay the approximately $12M in fines, penalties and judgements against him and his deficient Board after being found guilty numerous times? You decide.

Now we read and hear of the pool at the Theodore Young Community Center needing “emergency” repairs! Here’s an excerpt from his blog:

“The TDYCC Pool has been closed for nearly 4-weeks for repairs... Starting on January 14, the pool was drained so an inspection could be performed by a contractor familiar with the pool. It takes several days to drain the pool. Once the pool was drained to an appropriate level, the technicians inspected the pool, located potential leaks, and made the repairs.”

While the pool was drained – and not mentioned, was that they determined the pool’s pump needed to be replaced or repaired. The work was put out to bid. The original low-bid contractor was unable to perform the repair for the pump and now the Town was stuck. They went to the next bidder, Westchester Electric Motor and Pumps (W.E.M.P.) of Elmsford, a vendor within the town for many years which has often helped many local communities at no charge, and asked them to take on the repairs. They agreed. Then The Paul threw them the curve ball as he usually does: The Paul asked that they work through the weekend to rush the repairs so they could get the pool back in service! Of course, working through the weekend requires additional charges not included in the bid! So while seeking prices for the repairs was legal, changing the parameters of the request for repairs was not. The Town will now pay extra for a repair that would have only taken two days longer had The Paul done what the bid called for. ABG is not surprised – The Paul routinely does this. True to his word, ABG learned the owner of W.E.M.P., did work through the weekend and delivered the pump as requested. 

So two of the Town’s pools have been neglected for years. ABG questioned a W.E.M.P. employee who told us the pump in the TYCC pool appeared to be the original pump as far as they could tell. ABG won’t recommend routinely changing pumps in pools but recognizes that preventative maintenance, investments in our infrastructure and a willingness to spend taxpayer money on valued equipment, buildings and yes, some programs, requires a leader willing to do the right thing. We desperately need that leader in Greenburgh. We can only hope.