Divide and Conquer and Bid Rigging

At the last Town Board meeting, where new Councilman Ken Jones hurled the “F-bomb” at resident Hal Samis for approaching the dais, the G10 were in attendance and in good form. Speaker after speaker continued to harangue the Board for not doing their “due diligence” regarding the allegedly fabricated partnership of Group MRH and the Richman Corporation by Group MRH’s principal. Richman is well-known for their work in affordable housing throughout the nation. Regardless of what was presented, the Board feigned interest with their residents and either walked out or directed their attention to their personal electronic devices. ABG acknowledges that the exception may be momentarily acceptable to check a device, but this Board is worse than a young teen with their first phone (or A.D.D).

Also at the last meeting the public was treated to a new catch-phrase from Mr Feiner. He decided he would attack the residents questioning his motives regarding WestHelp since he lost that challenge. His lack of due diligence and feckless ability to broker a beneficial deal for the Town, or for that matter, any deal for the Town keeps our Town spiraling out of control. The list of Mr Feiner’s recent and ignored debacles awaits poised for his re-election bid this Tuesday night at Greenburgh Town Hall.

This reminds us of when democrats were using the facility to make phone calls for President Obama’s re-election campaign and Republican Chairman Doug Colety found out that a political party was using Town resources for campaigning and caught Mr Feiner red-handed supplying the use of Town Hall by a political party without charging for its use. Embarrassed? Doubtful. ABG has repeatedly heard that Mr Feiner is without the “shame” gene. But, he did request they pay a token amount. And, in typical knee-jerk fashion, the Town Board “wrestled” with how much to charge any group using Town Hall property? As always, after they all postulated, they offered no solution. Ms Ella Preiser informed them of a policy already on the books for years, citing chapter, verse and date of adoption, and that they should simply follow it. Ockham’s Razor; also doubtful in Greenburgh. Let’s see if the Town receives a check from the Democratic Party for this nominating convention?

As Mr Feiner continues the wholesaling of the Unincorporated Town to developers, residents are challenged by his divide and conquer strategy, all the while sitting in either increased traffic or flooded neighborhoods. He wrongfully assumes they cannot possibly have the resources to effectively battle him, deeming himself unstoppable. In concert with Mr Feiner is his “Fidus Achates”, Planning Commissioner Thomas Madden, whose title seems to grow in propensity with the need cover Mr Feiner’s litigiousness butt. Mr Madden bristles as he presents every proposal to the Town Board with an implied endorsement, ensuring job security. Mr Feiner relishes these exhortations, perched from the dais like the buzzard eyeing a carcass from afar, never once disagreeing or instructing Mr Madden to, “Sit down. Sit the F*** down!”

Here’s a few examples:

The Edgemont Community Council has been directing their efforts to dealing with the Dromore Road zoning and building conflagrations and slowly making headway. Fulton Park’s Civic Association is dealing with Westhab’s building construction violations to no avail and will next be addressing the Deli Delicious drive-through requests yet again - if they can get through the backed-up traffic jams on their overburdened street. The Parkway Homes Civic Association found themselves surprised with Mr Feiner’s “slipping” another group home into an already saturated area at 88 North Road. Low and behold, Councilman Ken Jones is a member and said nothing to his neighborhood. The Glenview Civic Association has had its issues with the Brightview Assisted Living facility that asked for, wrote and received the zoning change from the Town Board to increase the size of their building and any others built throughout the Town in the future. They had just finished with all the Stop and Shop problems and violations only for Mr Feiner to find a speck of undeveloped property in their neighborhood he would “gift” a developer. The Village of Ardsley will be getting at least half a million dollars from the sale of the Town-owned, foreclosed upon former-Water Wheel property while other Villages and the Unincorporated Town watch helplessly in disbelief. Of course, the Cumberland Farms deception on Central Avenue hosted a look at ways the Town Board could charge all Central Avenue Service Stations a several thousand dollar fee (read: tax) based on their distorted view of how to reward existing businesses in the Town. Let’s not forget the Worthington-Woodlands Civic Association’s recent request to meet with the Town Board to discuss the GameOn 365 propos...oh wait a minute, Mr Feiner and his Board just pushed that through without a public meeting after promising to propose a few dates for them all to sit down together to discuss it. The guilty verdict against the Town for the illegal sewer district billing by the Southern Greenville Civic Association area keeps those people occupied as the Town still hasn’t followed the court-ordered restorations and refunds. While we’re in that neighborhood, lets not ignore the Toll Brothers development that has constantly and continues to violate many of the Town’s building regulations. Apparently, Mr Feiner is happy to look the other way himself and ignore others that work for him doing the same. Of course in Valhalla, Mr Feiner led the charge to break the lease stipulations with the County for the WestHelp facility, allowed it to deteriorate and try to add a new tenant that he did not have authority to do. Fortunately, NYS shot down this bad idea and insisted the affordable housing remain just that. And while we would love to see legal action taken against him for doing this, it would be counterproductive and only cost us more money in guilty verdict judgments. The north Elmsford-area Civic Association of the Town will now be trying to reign in Mr Feiner with the 100 acres (50 in Greenburgh and 50 in Mt Pleasant) of construction near and on the old Union Carbide property, increasing car and truck traffic to an already impossible traffic situation on Rt 9A and other area roads. Increasingly record setting flooding will continue to hammer anything south of the area during a “regular” rainfall. On Taxter Road we’ll see 400 more condominiums being built. White water rafting to Ardsley may be a new sport in Elmsford with each rainfall. Back on the Bronx River side of the Town, Mr Feiner has done nothing to help those residents and businesses with any type of flood relief maintenance.

In every instance mentioned above, its believed developers secretly met with Mr Open Government himself or Mr Madden to craft what they would need to promise the Town to move ahead with their plans. The Fortress Bible Church refused to offer the fire district a donation per Mr Feiner’s request and met only resistence with their proposed church and school. The Hebrew Retire Center on Grasslands road conceded and their expansion plans sailed through the Town’s bureaucracy like a hot knife through butter. Fortress Bible Church sued and won, with the settlement award to be upwards of $8M! 

Mr Feiner accused the residents of bid rigging at the last Town Board meeting but has been proven to be the only suspect of bid rigging in the Town. And where is our Town Board? Surely the Board members who are attorneys can see they are not upholding their “Officer of the Court” status with their condonation of all of these actions and bad decisions. We can only wait and see what happens with the nominations at the democratic meeting to invariably be held at no charge at Town Hall. We hope the democrats have someone able and willing to challenge Mr Feiner. His time has past. We need to get back to healing our Town without being divided and certainly never conquered!