Due Diligence, Colorful Language and “Sit the F*** Down!”

The first round of public comments where residents get only three minutes to speak seemed to pick up the pace of the Town Board meeting. Two service station owners spoke of multiple violations by a gentleman named Ali, who is running a gas station at Central Avenue and Old Army Road, and would like the Town to look into his sign violations, auto repairs and more. Their request to the Town Board is to have the playing field leveled by mandating the owner comply with all laws that they are all required to follow and cease his illegal operations. Town Attorney Tim “Remediation” Lewis stated they would look into these complaints and get back to them in two weeks. We wish them luck with having the Town make the owner comply and then getting a response from the Town.

Installing sidewalks seemed to be a popular subject as the cost of maintenance and installation of sidewalks was not in the proposed capital budget, also on the night’s agenda. One resident discussed the need on Old Kensico Road for sidewalks as they have witnessed a significant increase in speeding now that the Town has repaved the road. The Paul agreed. One advantage of the repaving was the “lowering” of the road surface which returned a viable curb for the homeowners, preventing water on the street from entering their yards and homes as it did previously. That speaker finished with a criticism of the WestHelp bid by the Town Board, while complimenting them on the New Resident Event held earlier in the evening.

The Paul decided to expound on how aggravated he was over the controversy with the WestHelp bidding process. He started out calmly and then became more agitated as he continued, stating the Town will get $1.5 M within months of signing the lease and there were millions of dollars at play and we’d get several million dollars less if we went with the next bidder(s) on the list. Apparently to The Paul, his logic justifies the Town’s acceptance of an illegal bid to make a few million dollars more over the course of the 18 years. One good thing, borne from a bad thing, is still bad; and it sounds just as illegal. 

Then The Paul brought up Ferncliff and Harbor View, which was the developer mentioned above that dropped out of the bid, and claimed members of the public were trying to stop the highest bidder from working with the Town. He distorted these facts while ignoring reality. His actions were what caused Ferncliff from not happening, as they were never a financially viable candidate for the WestHelp property. Harbor View backed out of the deal because there was an internal conflict with the two partners, with one working secretly with The Paul and the other kept in the dark. They also didn’t want to be in the middle of a public feud with The Paul, the County and the State.

The Paul commented, “Now there’s an attempt to, um, smear the reputation of the third bidder; someone who is offering significantly more money than anyone else. Um, what concerns me, the issue that concerns me even more is the ramifications that this is going to have on every bidding process.” While this sounds very authentic and perhaps a bit sincere, what The Paul fails to mention is that all of the WestHelp bidding process circumstances were created by his actions and condoned by his Board! The fact that the applicant from Group MRH lied to get the bid and subsequently admitted he lied to the Journal News reporter is the single-most damning ramification – all created by the applicant! In fact, the public’s only involvement prior to this was that they were doing the real due diligence and found the discrepancies in seemingly all of the information being presented to the Town.

The Paul’s tirade continued about a resident contacting him because he was appalled that a reporter went to the bidders home and took a picture of him in an undershirt. This same person said he would never bid with the Town to not have his reputation defamed. First, The Paul never mentioned if this person he spoke of would ever be submitting a bid on anything in the Town anyway or was simply making a point that The Paul would seize upon. Second, Mr. Harris let the reporter into his home. Third, what he was wearing was insignificant to the reporter and he could have taken a moment to “suit up” if his appearance were of concern. Third, and probably most importantly, the home address was the one provided as the business address on the bid. As such the reporter went to the business address supplied to the Town in the bid. If he didn’t want people to contact him at home, he should have listed another address for the business, perhaps one where he could share office space for a fee.

The next statement is the phrase we believe will be the new catch-phrase of the day from The Paul and his Town Board we’ll be hearing often. “So what’s going to happen because of all this controversy is we’re basically… I consider this a form of bid rigging. And I’m saying it is bid rigging. It is bid rigging because what we’re basically doing is we’re discouraging the highest bidder from getting an award from the Town.  The aim of all this character assassination is to encourage people who win a bid successfully to drop out of the process and what’s going to happen its not only this project that counts. It’s going to be all these other projects.” Then he rambled on without offering any proof but claimed to have letters that the public hasn’t seen validating his position. It was an amazing exchange and then he reiterated, “I am convinced that this is a form of bid rigging.”

The second public comment, where the public is given five minutes to speak, became the liveliest and testiest. The first speaker, Robert Bernstein detailed point after point of the submitted information, explaining the incongruities he found and the apparent falsehoods throughout. At the end of his time, Mr. Bernstein chastised Councilman Jones as a lawyer and member of the NYS Bar reminding him that he has a duty to make sure no fraud takes place in the Town of Greenburgh. Councilman Jones appeared visibly shaken and was sweating profusely. Once Mr. Bernstein’s time was up, he concluded, “Ladies and gentlemen, you have a duty to do the right thing. You have a Supervisor out of control. You need to put a stop to this.” The Paul responded that they have a duty to make sure there is no bid rigging in the Town; to which Mr. Bernstein countered with, “Sir, you have faked this offer. The only one who is bid rigging is you!”

Resident after resident came to the podium to highlight discrepancies in the bid for the WestHelp property, the process, the illegalities of same, and occasionally other issues involving the Town.  Toward the end of the evening in what turned into more and more absurd responses from our Town “leaders”, Ms Preiser asked numerous questions of the Board and had a short dialog with them. When the last speaker, Mr. Bock asked for his turn at the podium, the Board begrudgingly conceded. As he was speaking, several Board members were busy with their electronic devices and not paying attention to what he was saying. Mr. Samis approached the dais and said loudly, “Mr. Feiner isn’t listening to you! He’s playing with his machine.” Councilman Jones told Mr. Samis  to sit down. Mr. Samis then repeated himself. Councilman Jones responded, “Sit down! Sit the f*** down!” Mr. Samis remarked that, “Mr. Jones spoke and he never speaks during a meeting.” Jones insisted that Mr. Bock was speaking. The Board immediately rose and they simply said in unison the meeting was over and exited. Mr. Bock’s final comment in disgust was, “This is Open Government at it’s best.”

The language used by Councilman Jones, no matter how frustrated he may be, is inexcusable for any of our Town “leaders”. We understand that sanctions should be placed against Mr. Jones, but know in “Bizarro Greenburgh”, he will probably be receiving an award at the next Town Board meeting. ABG noted several Board members were outside after the meeting by their parked cars laughing. 

Please watch the two Public Comments portions of the meeting to be enlightened as to what is happening to our Town by our “Leaders”. To see the part where Councilman Jones loses control, go directly to the last view minutes of the Second Public Comment section. But don’t sell yourself short; and watch the whole event:

http://greenburghny.swagit.com/play/05082013-689