Go For Broke

At the March 27, 2013 Town Board meeting, the G-10 representatives were the only participants willing to show up and speak. The topics du jour were the WestHelp debacle where Valhalla’s racist NIMBY’s and the Town Board continued encouraging The Paul to allow the degradation of the WestHelp facility in hopes of purchasing Valhalla votes in the upcoming election. Next was the former Frank’s Nursery at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road, replete with contaminated soil, back-room deals, unanswered environmental concerns and “confidential information” the Town Attorney deemed inappropriate to discuss. ABG believes any offering to purchase Town property should be put on the table for scrutiny and review by the public. It’s our property! Ideally, an RFP should be proposed. Lewis’ opinion did not stop the G-10 from further questioning and comments. The third discussion topic was the never-ending, never-performed, town-wide revaluation plan (hereafter: reval). The Paul has talked about this for years and but never acted upon it . His motto might be, “Why fix it when I can talk about it and still get re-elected.”

Why is the Town reval such a hot, scary and hands-off topic? Why has The Paul stayed away from it for so long? Because it’s a politicians worst nightmare. Certiorari challenges are how taxpayers within the municipalities typically counter the seemingly high and unfair tax assessment for their property. There’s an explanation of why and how revaluations affect homeowners that is somewhat simple, yet effective. One-third of the properties that are revalued will see their property taxes increase, one third will remain the same and the final third will see a reduction. Senior citizens seem to get clobbered by revals most often as they have purchased their homes years earlier, paid ever-escalating property taxes, retired and live off of a fixed income in the same home. Once their home is revalued, it invariably increases in value and winds up costing them more in property taxes. Increasingly, there are  companies more available willing to assist a large number of businesses and a growing number of residential owners to get certiorari adjustments as a means to a lower end in the Town of Greenburgh. Each Town Board meeting sees a non-stop increase in certiorari adjustment payouts. The March 27th Town Board meeting saw the Town expend $719,240 in tax certiorari adjust payouts! And, that’s not the highest one to date!

Adding up the amounts of money The Paul and the Town Board routinely drain from the wallets of the Unincorporated residents on a bimonthly basis is staggering. Each twice-monthly Town Board meeting the focus on larger and larger amounts of certiorari adjustments, fines, settlements, etc. In fact, one recent certiorari payout several months ago was about $1.2 million dollars. Couple the Town Board bimonthly events with the monthly $100K in lost revenue from the County contract for the former WestHelp property, the impending guilty verdict from the Fortress Bible lawsuit for up to $8M, and one has to wonder if the Town will soon face bankruptcy under The Paul’s administration? Join us as we sing, “I hear the train a-comin’...”

One easy example to eliminate unnecessary and controllable expenses is to combine the two Recreation departments The Paul insists on maintaining. As an example, both recreation department’s pool chemicals are not purchased for both pool facilities by one department. It makes no sense but it continues as the Veteran’s Park pool purchases are made by “their” recreation department and the Theodore Young Community Center’s pool purchases are made by the other recreation department. It’s been publicly alleged at an open Town Board meeting that maintaining the two recreation departments as separate but equal is racist by nature. It’s also costly.

This despicable behavior fits The Paul like a glove. He has openly flaunted this demeanor as part of the “goresome foursome” with County Executive Rob Astorino, County Legislator Michael Smith and County Executive Communications Director Ned McCormack. How do we know about The Paul’s racism? ABG witnessed it at an NAACP meeting held in White Plains several months ago when he publicly slipped and put his foot in his mouth*. We also know because he was found guilty of discrimination, destroying evidence and more in the Fortress Bible case. A subsequent appeal of his guilty verdict by The Paul and Diana “Sleepy” Juettner was struck down by a Federal Appeals Court, validating the guilt of The Paul and Diana Juettner.

Running the Town requires basic management skills. ABG believes the department heads (Commissioners) are qualified to run their own departments. If they are doing their jobs well, the running of the Town becomes a bit easier. But even with qualified individuals at the helm, The Paul and his Board manage to screw things up. Morale is at an all time low. Teamster-member Town employees are forced to wait four years before The Paul will negotiate their contract. There’s a hiring freeze in place unless it’s a position The Paul wants to fill with one of his cronies. It was pointed out by one speaker that the Town Board maintains its vacancy of moral actions because they lack a moral compass. ABG believes this is mostly because they wish to be re-elected and helped by The Paul. Subsequently, they blindly and unconditionally follow The Paul’s mandates and lead – contrary to Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan’s pronouncement of independent thinking on behalf of the Board members. Could a contributing factor be that the Town Board consists of only one political party? Possibly. Regardless, ABG is of the mind that it may be time to vacate the holder of the Town Supervisor position for someone with management experience and the ability to judge right from wrong instead of whether they are gaining a vote or not. Maybe it’s time to go for broke! We can only hope.


* See: 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - Feiner Insults NAACP:

http://www.abettergreenburgh.blogspot.com/2013/01/feiner-insults-naacp.html

and

Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - Feiner Insults NAACP - Part 2:

http://www.abettergreenburgh.blogspot.com/2013/01/feiner-insults-naacp-part-2.html